The Usual Delinquents
by Speed
Summary: At the Bruce Lee Martial Arts Magnet school across the Pacific ocean, Ranma and co. make some crucial adjustments. I try to include everyone in these chapters.
1. Default Chapter

Saotome Ranma woke up with a small start. Sitting up, he glanced around his room,  
looking to find whatever had woken him up.  
  
Hmm.... Pop's asleep, snoring again, as usual. I wish he'd   
stop sleeping as that big furball... Ranma thought to himself as he  
peered around looking for what had woken him up. Usually, this meant   
Nabiki had been takin' pictures, or the old letch had been doing something   
weird in his room, but there was no sign of either.  
  
Ranma padded downstairs, where he found Kasumi in the kitchen preparing   
breakfast. Akane was already off on her morning run, and Nabiki, bleary   
eyed in pajamas, sat at the table, toothbrush jutting out of her mouth   
at an odd angle. just a normal Tendo home morning, Ranma thought.   
Nothing unusual here, except I'm up... He sat down not too near Nabiki   
and began to watch what she was watching, but Ranma soon lost interest.  
CNN Japan wasn't his thing, and even though it was Japanese, half of   
everything on it was in English anyways. He snuck a glance at her face,  
which was colored by large grey bags under her eyes- She looked like she  
hadn't slept in _days_.  
  
Come to think of it, hadn't Kasumi brought her a cup of tea late last night?  
Ranma shrugged it off, being the concerned and sensitive future son in law   
that he is.  
  
It was then that Ranma saw it.  
  
His school bag.  
  
Ranma's first school year at Furinkan was over, and he was starting his   
second. It would be the first real day of class after the... "incident" involving   
himself and Gosunkugi Hikaru, Nabiki, Ukyou and Akane. Pineapple Nazi  
was there for certain, as well as the 'Dustbuster of Battle Auras', Miss Hinako.  
This last year had more interest in it than any man should have to deal   
with Ranma thought ruefully. His mind chased an errant memory of a   
pissed off Chinese monk spouting off about him living in interesting times.  
He had thought it was a nice thing to say for a pissed off guy, but in a   
rare moment of intellectualism, Ranma understood the curse.  
Interesting got boring, real fast.  
  
Even though he had gotten up early, Ranma still managed, along with Akane, to   
be late for class that morning. Eerily, not a damn thing went wrong   
all morning- He and Akane didn't fight, Nabiki didn't scam (Well, not   
him anyways), Happosai didn't make an impromptu appearance, and Soun or   
Pop didn't make some weird scene either. Even more surprising was that   
after all that calm, no previously forgotten martial artist with a year  
old (Or two) vendetta against Ranma had appeared. Well, the school day  
does have 8 hours... Ryoga caught up with me after school.... Ranma thought ruefully.  
But still, something seemed wrong.  
  
It was. Terribly wrong.  
  
  
=====================================  
  
Speed-Chan and Mako-Chan present;  
  
The Usual Delinquents  
  
Chapter One: Too Many Nuts in the  
  
Party Mix  
  
=====================================  
  
Ranma zoomed up to the school gates, only to see an assembly going on   
on the front lawn where last year, Kuno would have been waiting to   
'challenge' him every day.  
  
"Aloha, good little Keikis. So good to be a seein' yous back heah at the  
Big Kahuna's School. Especially you, Ranma Saotome and Akane Tendo. Watt  
good keikis you both is!"   
The Hawaiian Headmaster himself, the target Of Saotome Ranma's little   
assaults over the past three days, was standing on a platform, addressing  
the crowd. Miss Hinako was by his side, holding four coins between her   
fingers-she was ready for trouble. The headmaster's trademark shears were  
sitting on his podium, rattling slightly as he enthusiastically pounded   
the pulpit as he addressed the crowd.  
  
Ranma barely hid a grimace. This was going to be a disaster.  
  
"I be's here to announce to you dat this year, some of Furinkan High's   
best students gonna be takin a lil' trip!" continued the patriarch of   
the Kuno line.  
  
Ranma turned to Akane. "To the pineapple hair trimmer, no doubt."  
  
"I don't know, Ranma. He seems awfully generous and happy. Maybe he's   
actually doing something good this time. He can't possibly keep his job   
if all he ever does is stalk poor students' hair" Akane reasoned aloud.  
  
Ranma made a face like a 5 year old biting a lemon. "Whatever, Akane.   
I'm just sayin, I don't trust him."  
  
"I be's sendin 20 lucky Furinkan students to study in Seattle, in America.  
  
And todays I be announcing them! I be sending only our bestest and   
brightest lil keiki's to this wonderful school in America!" the   
principal of Nerima's strangest school exclaimed gleefully.  
  
"Then why did he say he was happy to see us, Akane?"  
  
"Well, I get pretty good grades. Maybe I'm going!" Akane said aloud.  
  
"Hah. Whatever." Ranma quipped.  
  
"Are you saying I'm not smart enough?" Akane fumed.  
  
"Yeah, that's what I'm sayin. Anybody dumb enough to walk back in the   
kitchen after all you've done to our poor world ain't goin to America   
because they're smart." the pigtailed boy snapped back.  
  
"From Da senior Class, I be sendin Kuno Tatewaki, Mizuhara Keisuke..."  
  
"Kuno? No way he gets good enough grades. I smell a rat" supplied one   
girl near the group.  
  
"Yeah, you're right, Ranma. I think I'm beginning to see the light."   
Akane grumbled.  
  
"Ranchan!" Ukyou exclaimed as she made her way over. "I was beginning   
to think I'd never find you"  
  
"Tendo Nabiki, Moroboshi...." the principal contined.  
  
"Did you hear that, Akane? Your older sister is going to America!"   
Sayuri said cheerily to Akane.  
  
"I know, she'll be so happy." Akane said, suddenly cheerful to anyone   
who was _not_ Ranma.  
  
"And from da Junior Class, I be sendin... Gosunkugi Hikaru... Tendo Akane.   
Mizuhara Mio..." rambled the demented Pineapple Freak.  
  
  
Akane lit up with joy, and slugged Ranma in the gut without detracting   
from her bright face or demeanor. "You see? I told you I'd make it. I'm a   
good student, Unlike some people I know who never listen in class and who  
are always making me late to school!"  
  
"Don't worry, Akane, now Ranma can make me late to school every morning!   
Isn't that right, Ranma?" Ukyou jibed, grabbing Ranma's arm for emphasis.  
  
Akane started to fume, and Ranma searched desperately for an excuse to   
break his arm free of Ukyou's grip... He didn't have to search long.  
  
"Kuonji, Ukyou..." continued the Principal.  
  
  
"Oh goodness! to think that all my hard work, a single student struggling   
to survive on her own against tremendous odds would be recognized as   
accomplished after so long! it's about time, don't you think so, Ranchan?"  
Ukyou said, clasping her hands together. Her eyes were wide and shone   
brightly, full of stars.  
  
Ranma seized his moment, breaking his arm free and patting Ukyou on the back.  
"About time, sure. That trip to America will do you good. Have a good time,   
Ucchan." Ranma said in congratulations.  
  
Ukyou looked pensive, just as principle Kuno paused for breath, before announcing  
the last name. Oh no! With me gone, Ranma-honey will be left all alone with   
that deranged gymnast and Shampoo!! What a disaster! Images of Ranma's unfortunately  
weak moral fiber being put to the test by these two hussies without her to defend   
her claim as the true fiancee flashed though Ukyou's distressed mind.  
  
"And little keiki Saotome Ranma." finished the Principal, the sun glinting off his  
unnaturally white smile.  
  
Suddenly, a scantily clad Chinese girl bearing aphrodisiac laden Ramen evaporated   
from Ukyou's mind like dew on a sunny morning. I'm going to be alone with Ran-chan!  
In America!! In that city where Meg Ryan ended up with Tom Hanks!!!  
  
Ranma's face brightened up in sheer joy, ignoring Ukyou's impromptu party for herself  
behind him. "Ha. Look who's smart now, Miss goody does her homework? Looks like I'm   
just as smart as you now! SO there!"  
  
"Fix." the short haired girl stated simply in reply.  
  
"Yep. Fix." The okonomiyaki chef agreed, coming back to herself.  
  
"You guys are just jealous that I'm as good at school as you are without spending   
any time on it." Ranma yelled, his gloat obvious.  
  
"Fix" replied the student body as a whole.  
  
"NO IT AIN'T!" Ranma screamed back at them.  
  
"Definetely a fix" replied the student body.  
  
"No IT _AIN'T!_" Ranma screamed back.  
  
"Fix" replied the mass together. Then they did the wave.  
  
Ranma sensed his uphill battle, and in a rare show of discretion, gave up and muttered  
his disagreements to himself.  
  
---  
  
Ranma walked home from school in a wonderful mood. Of course, his first day of intensive   
english had been awfully hard, but soon, he was going to be far away from many of his life's   
problems. Sure, Nabiki, Kuno, Ukyou and Akane were coming along, but he'd be leaving   
behind part time homicidal maniac, and even worse, a part time housecat fiancee   
with an evil old troll/super martial artist grandmother, and directionally challenged   
kosher diet subsisting, legendary grudge packing, martial artist. Not to mention a   
certain part time homicidal, food additive obsessed _non_ chinese fiancee and a   
meddlesome father and would be stepfather, one of whom turns into a _Snoring_ endangered  
species photo opportunity at every splash of cold water. Not to _mention_ a certain   
troglodyte, Undergarment thieving, midget pervert of the first order who was  
obsessed with groping him... for whom a cold shower only made his perversion worse, not better.  
  
America was going to be sweet. Ranma was looking forward to a little peace and quiet.  
  
It just wasn't in the cards, that's all.  
  
---  
  
"No, Ranma. that letter makes a sound like a.... Growling cat" Akane said, evil glint in her eye.  
  
"rrrrrr....." Ranma replied, looking about fearfully.  
  
"Yeah!" Akane said brightly, face lighting up. "Just like that"  
  
"Just shut up, All right?" Ranma said. "English is hard."  
  
"Sure, Ranma. Whatever you say"  
  
---  
  
  
  
The tickets read: Flight 681 non-stop service from Narita to Seattle.   
Two snacks and breakfast included.  
Departure at 7:45 am  
Please be at the Terminal one hour in advance to accommodate  
pre-flight procedures.  
  
"No problem," Ranma boasted "Heck, me an' pops _swam_ to china. This should be a   
walk in the park." He was right of course, it SHOULD have been a walk in the park. All   
that they would have to do is catch the red line from the local subway station and that would   
take them to the underground level of the terminal.   
  
Of course Ranma, of all people, should have known that nothing involving Furinkan ever   
turned out to be that easy.  
"Well, I'm going to go pack." Akane stood up and put on the facial expression of determination   
she usually reserved for her cooking projects. "I want to be able to get a head start tomorrow   
morning. You should pack too Ranma."  
  
Ranma smirked. "Don't worry bout me Akane, I know a technique or two that'll help here."  
  
Genma and Soun looked up from their go game "You don't mean..."  
  
Lightning rumbled in the distance. "Yes, I'm going to use the Claws of the Hermit Crab."   
  
Nabiki looked up from her English homework, her facility for morbid fascination piqued.   
"'The Claws of the Hermit Crab'?, eh? This wouldn't be another Saotome super-secret   
technique, would it? You know when you take a perfectly normal activity, strike a stupid   
pose before and afterwards and give it a corny name?"  
  
Genma and Ranma were dumbfounded, but Genma recovered quickly. "A martial artists   
techniques are often derived from the lives they live outside of the dojo. A true master turns   
even the pettiest of daily tasks into training." he pontificated.  
  
Nabiki raised an eyebrow, "Oh really? Well then, watch this" she stood up and clenched a fist   
in front of her, "Tendo-school super secret technique, Impenetrable Dragon Fortress!" and with   
that she walked upstairs to her room and locked the door behind her.  
  
The room was silent for a time.   
  
Then Genma turned to Soun, "Why didn't you ever show me that one?"  
  
Ranma slapped his forehead in disgust.  
---  
  
The week passed rather eventfully, but Ranma was able to gloss over the usual hi-jinks  
because of his mounting anticipation. Suffice it to say that Genma and Soun made an   
attempt and a half to get Akane and Ranma married before they left, Happosai stepped   
up his groping in order to "Build up a reserve till you get back, you snot nosed punk",  
all the while Ranma kept pouring hot water on Ryoga and booting him out of the house   
whilst Ryoga got lost and accidentally took Ranma's backpack instead of his own, which   
Ranma thought he did on purpose (Ranma couldn't find Ryoga's backpack). Shampoo was   
left out of the loop, and Mousse, well, Mousse figured it out, but in yet another moment   
of unconventional wisdom, merely said "Good luck" to what he hoped would soon be only   
his former rival. That moment of wisdom, of course, was after his moment of very   
conventional blind rage and cries of "Saotome Ranma, you COWARD" and a truly immense beating.  
---  
Akane spent most of the night agonizing over the task of packing. Would she need her barbells   
in America? How many shoes should she take? Was this dress too tight for American standards?   
Should she put her toothbrush in her check or carry-on baggage? Every item she chose to pack   
only came after extensive deliberation.   
  
Ranma on the other hand, was reading comic books. "Ahh, don't sweat it Akane, its not like you're   
goin' on a trek through the desert or nothin'. You can probably get most of that junk in the US anyway."  
  
"You should be taking care of your own bags Ranma, you won't be able to run back here for   
anything you've forgotten." Akane closed her closet behind her as she spoke. "If you not ready   
tomorrow the plane will leave withou..."  
  
Ranma put his finger to his lips and hushed Akane. With the room quiet a small scraping sound   
could be heard, emanating from Akane's top dresser drawer.  
  
With a speed owed to intense practice Ranma dashed to the drawer and flung it open in a single   
movement. "C'mon out you old letch! Now you're really in for it!"  
  
Happosai lifted his head from the drawer with an indignant flourish, "You two have decided to   
abandon your master and flee to America! I feel I'm entitled to a few going away presents."  
  
Ranma closed his eyes and visualized a complex attack, "Gee, old lech, since you put it that   
way...HERE ARE SOME CHESTNUTS I'D LIKE YOU TO HAVE!!" He pounced with   
a barrage of punches and kicks too fast for the untrained eye to see as anything but a blur of   
muscle, the first kick slammed shut the drawer, catching the yellow cotton panties of Akane's   
that Happosai was absconding with. The other attacks all missed their marks, but served to   
keep the old pervert from glomping Akane and making a further nusciance of himself.  
  
"Whoo Hoo," Happosai chuckled, "You'll have to catch me first Ranma-my-boy!!" and with   
that the pint-sized monstrosity leapt out the window put on the ridiculous mask he lovingly   
referred to as his 'working clothes.'  
  
Ranma growled his frustration, "Akane I gotta go, no pair of underwear in town is safe if I   
don't stop him tonight."  
  
In a rare display of understanding, Akane just nodded.  
  
Ranma got back at 5:00 in the morning, completely exhausted. He stumbled up the stairs   
and crawled under the covers. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow. He was also   
awakened before his head hit the pillow by Soun Tendo opening the door to his room and   
shouting a warm "Ohaio Gozaimasu!! Come on kids, the plane is leaving in two hours we've   
got to hurry. C'mon Ranma Where's your bag?"  
  
Ranma lurched to his feet and rubbed his eyes. He suddenly realized that he hadn't had the   
time to pack the night before, he was thoroughly boned. "Uhh, yeah Mr.Tendo, why don't   
you and pops," he kicked the panda awake "Go make sure Akane and Nabiki are ready   
an I'll meet you downstairs."   
  
As soon as they had gone Ranma opened his closet looking for his trusty hiking backpack,   
that beaten up piece of canvas had seen him to china and back, and he'd lived out of it more   
times than he cared to count since he came to the Tendo's, it was really the only thing he had   
owned since before he was cursed that he still had. It was a part of him, really. And it was gone.  
  
It took a moment for this to settle in. Ranma couldn't tell anyone in the house because he'd   
already bragged about having it under control, he'd just have to use pop's backpack. Quickly   
he ran over to the old man's closet and pulled out his father's things. The backpack was there,   
and it was already half packed. Genma like to be ready to run out on the bill anytime he could.  
  
"It looks like I really WILL have to use the claws of the hermit crab to be packed in time."   
Ranma dumped all of his dresser drawers out onto the floor, he surveyed all of the belongings   
he had acquired since having a semi permanent residence here at the Tendo's, it was a lot   
more than he had expected it to be. "Well I guess I'll have to leave some of it behind then."  
  
Ranma took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself for the Claws Of The Hermit Crab.   
Like the hermit crab who carries his entire home on his back, a martial artist too must be able   
to see what is essential to his survival and pack it away. Ranma opened his eyes and with   
Amaguriken speed snatched the first things he noticed until the bag was stuffed full. Spent,   
he walked downstairs for breakfast.  
  
Ranma fell asleep four times on the subway ride to Narita Airport, Akane had noticed him   
sleeping standing up and had struggled over to him on the stop before the terminal. Only to   
be crushed up against him when the new passengers got on. Akane blushed and tried to push   
away but the mass of people kept her in contact with her fiancée. Akane heaved a deep sigh,   
and let herself relax. Although she'd rather be apart from him, she could get a little rest leaning   
on him- it was only fair, after all, since he had already fallen asleep on her twice already.  
He was pretty cute when he was asleep, anyways... without that loud, rude mouth to distract   
you. Akane found herself justifying it in her mind...  
He might be a pervert, but you know what they say about the evil you know...  
  
  
  
And so the week came to an end. After 7 days of intensive language training, the various   
Furinkan students had assembled at the airport, where they would be shipped off to American  
host homes. Homes where at least one family member spoke Japanese. As an intensive learning   
class, the trip still needed a Japanese English teacher. And get one they did.  
  
"Hihi Students! there aren't any bad delinquents out there, are there?" Ninomiya Hinako asked  
her assembled class. She meditated upon draining Saotome Ranma, who seemed trapped in   
some little gloomy world of his own upon seeing her, but decided against it.  
  
Principal Kuno was there too, strumming his ukelele. Kuno Tatewaki was making overtures to   
Akane, Nabiki was collecting bets about on-air fights, and Ranma was talking to Ukyou.  
  
Suddenly, Kuno turned from his dearest and most attentive love's affectionate uppercuts,  
and turned his attention to the ukelele strumming madman, whose normally maniacal smile   
had grown so wide it took up all of his face. He could hardly open his eyes, he was   
smiling so wide.  
  
"Hold, I say thee! Vile headmaster who does double as the father of myself and my truly   
villainous sister, Tell me this- Is this not another of your insidious plots to lead away  
Furinkan's mightiest Champion, Kuno Tatewaki, The Blue Thunder (Lighting crackles) of   
Furinkan high so that you mightst institute a devious hair cutting policy in my conspicuous  
absence?"  
  
"Tacchi, How you be sain' dat to yo Own Fadda?" Replied the principal.  
  
"I can't believe I didn't think of it before!" Exclaimed one student.  
  
Nabiki stood in shock and horror Kuno figured it out before me... I must be slipping...   
She rubbed her tired eyes nervously.  
  
"Yeah, it did seem a little too convenient... not to mention Ranma made it on.. I  
  
knew there was a fix in here somewhere!" replied another student.  
  
"Ranma, what are we going to do?" Asked Akane. "We can't just leave the other students to his mercy!  
We've got to do something!"  
  
"I agree. Like beating the idea out of him!" Ranma cried, jumping into action.  
  
Unfortunately for righteousness, Miss Hinako was watching, and reconsidered her  
earlier grant of clemency.   
  
"Happo Five Yen Satsu!" cried Miss Hinako.  
  
*Plop* Went Ranma, falling to the floor like a soggy raisin.  
  
Principal Kuno, seizing the moment, reached behind his back and pulled out a giant Ukulele,   
which he dropped to the floor. With a mighty push, he shoved the remaining students as well  
as Ranma's semi conscious body into the loading ramp.  
  
"Ho ho ho. Be seein you keiki's at the end o' your school yeah!" shouted the headmaster over  
the top of his giant Ukulele. Miss Hinako walked to the end of the   
Ukulele, and with the   
headmaster's help, moved it aside just enough for her to stride into the entry corridor.   
  
There could have been an escape, but there were three boys at the opening,  
and they were... a little... preoccupied... at the time.  
  
"Oh my god... I can feel miss Hinako's..."  
  
"Happo no yen coin return!" cried a sultry voice, and the tube was filled with a bright flash  
of light- and screams.  
  
--------  
Three Days Earlier...  
  
"Excuse me, can you point me to Furinkan High school?" asked Hibiki Ryoga.  
The man appeared to be a police officer.  
  
"Furinkan high school? that's Japanese, right?" asked the cop. He understood Japanese a bit.   
That was nice, although Ryoga's english was probably good enough for this conversation   
anyways.  
  
Switching to english, Ryoga answered with a simple "Yes"  
  
"Are you Japanese?"  
  
"Well, yeah. Where is it?"  
  
"It's 3000 miles away from here. Where are your parents, boy?"  
  
"Ummm... I don't really know."  
  
"Uh-huh. Are you here with a school or something?"  
  
"No, I don't go to school." Ryoga replied. "Look, can I go?"  
  
"Son, I think you better come with me"  
--------  
  
The "Please fasten seat belts" light went out above Tendo Nabiki's head. She wasn't   
interested in sitting with the rest of the students, so she hopped up into the aisle  
and moved up the aisle until she found a flight attendant.  
  
"Excuse me" Nabiki asked to the back of the flight attendant.  
  
"Yes?" replied the flight attendant chirpily. Nabiki was not one to miss the   
artificial smile.  
  
"Look. There's a whole row full of violent martial artists back there."  
  
"Martial ARTISTS!" the flight attendant almost screamed. "I thought you were students!"  
  
"We are. but some of them back there are also martial artists."  
  
"Oh no. We normally put martial artists in cages in the cargo area! " she said.   
continuing in a whisper- "They destroy the planes, you see."  
  
"Oh, I see. Listen, I'll tell you what. I'll say what I can to keep them quiet, and   
let you know which ones are which, if you'll upgrade me to first class."  
  
The stewardess bit her lip and regarded Nabiki. "First class is pretty full... but   
I'll see what I can do."  
  
Nabiki smiled, and made her way back to camp chaos.   
  
---  
Ranma drowsily stumbled down the isle to his seat, in the center of the center row.   
He was almost certain that Principal Kuno had planned it that way, but he didn't really   
care. Ranma would be able to rest up on the flight and in eight hours he'd be miles and   
miles away from the vast majority of his problems in Furinkan. Ranma was ready for a   
little smooth sailing and relaxation. Heck maybe he'd even be able to concentrate on   
curing himself of the curse for a change. Yeah, things were gonna be great in America.  
  
Ranma caught a glimpse of Nabiki as he sat down; she looked more tired than he felt.   
She was talking at a stewardess about something. Probably swindling her way into first   
class or something. Ranma just shrugged his shoulders and buckled up.   
  
The stewardess Nabiki had been talking to came up beside him, speaking gingerly;  
"Would you like a complimentary sedati… er, bag of peanuts?"  
  
"Yeah, sure." Ranma reclined in his chair, smushing Gosunkugi Hikaru's legs, "And   
can ya get me a cup of ice water too? The salt makes me thirsty." The stewardess   
smiled and put the peanuts and the water on his tray. To Ranma's surprise however,   
she didn't leave.   
  
Ranma gave her a sidelong glance, "Don'tcha have to see to the rest of the plane lady?"  
  
She looked anxious, "I'm just making sure you're satisfied with the micky fi- I mean   
peanuts they're a new recipe the airline's trying out."  
  
"Lady don't worry, I'm sure they they're fine."  
  
"We'll I'd really like to know for sure how you felt about them."  
  
"All right already, I'll try 'em." Ranma tipped the bag back into his mouth and chomped   
down the entire contents. The flight attendant looked on expectantly. Ranma licked his   
teeth, "Y'know lady I think you oughtta switch to the old recipe this one tastes sorta   
funny. Like medicine almost…." Ranma's voice trailed off as he collapsed onto his tray,   
unconscious.  
  
The stewardess grinned, "Yess, that's one down! Well, better clean up the spill." she giggled.  
  
---  
  
Kuno Tatewaki sat in his window seat, contemplating the wing. * Verily, it doth have  
both the strength of Tendo Akane and the free flowing grace of the beauteous pig-tailed   
girl...* he thought to himself. *Of course, it does not love me as well as they..." he   
thought, priding himself on his good looks and suave ways with women. he looked once   
again upon the graceful wing...  
on the wing, he saw a small shriveled form playing with the flaps.  
  
"AHHH!" he said, getting up and going to the aisle, and bumping into Tendo Nabiki.  
  
"Ah. Kuno Baby. Just who I wanted to talk to."  
  
"Nabiki, please remove yourself from my way. I must tell the captain of this aircraft   
that there is a demon defiling it!"  
  
Nabiki slapped her head. OF course this would happen to her.  
"Look, Kuno-baby. Just sit down. You didn't see any gremlin or whatever."  
  
"B-but"  
  
"Look, I need you to keep quiet. That sorcerer Saotome is going to use a spell that   
requires a noble warrior's spirit to be enraged. Just stay calm, and he won't be able  
to keep you apart from the pig-tailed girl."  
  
"Pig-tailed girl?.... But she is back in Japan! Oh, how I miss her beauty, her   
vivacious..." he was cut off by Nabiki.  
  
"Oh, Kuno-Baby, like she could just let a catch like you run out of town like that.   
She's following you, and it won't be long before you see her again." Nabiki said, an   
_evil_ grin spreading across her face.  
  
"Ah, truly, she loves me well. Her feelings must have the strength of a raging hurricane,  
an erupting Volcano, when she contemplates my heroic features. Truly, she loves me well."  
  
"I'd say you're right about the feelings part, Kuno baby. Just remember to keep quiet,   
or you won't see your pig-tailed girl ever again."  
  
"You have my word, Tendo Nabiki."  
  
"Good."  
  
Nabiki looked away from Kuno over to the middle row- Ranma was unconscious. She didn't   
have to worry about that. Now she could just go up to first class, and get some rest.   
*God, I haven't slept since that dance fiasco... I bet that's why we're here in the   
first place* she said with a yawn, rubbing her eyes. She felt the puffy bags, and   
knew she must not look her best.   
She strolled up into first class, and found the stewardess.  
  
"We found you a seat, miss. This young lady was reserving it for her privacy, but has   
agreed to allow you to be seated."   
  
Nabiki shrugged her way through a thank-you to the stewardess, and sat down lightly in   
the chair.  
  
"Hi there. I'm Rei" said the girl next to her.   
Nabiki turned and looked the girl up and down- she was slender, and tall. She was in   
good shape, and pretty, not in a cute sort of way, like her sister Akane, but in a sultry   
sort of way, a debutante sort of way.   
  
"Hi." Nabiki said back simply.  
  
"What are you going to America for?" the girl asked- her tone carried a genuine interest.  
  
"What do you care?"  
  
"I don't care, really. But it also might be interesting, and I live for the interesting."   
replied the girl, ruffling her shoulder length blue hair. Light blue- like if you  
stirred Akane and Shampoo's hair together in a vat.  
  
"My life is already way too interesting." Nabiki replied.  
  
"So tell me about it then. if you don't like the interesting, I could tell you about my   
life."  
  
Nabiki sighed. "All right. I'm on this plane because I was involved in a plot, along with  
a few... associates of mine, to prevent our madman principal from shaving the student  
body's heads."  
  
"WhoA!" Rei replied. "That IS interesting. How'd you do it?"  
  
"We stole his coconuts. He's got this Hawaiian fetish..."  
  
"Fetish? Gross. a friend of mine had a boyfriend who crossdressed."  
  
"that sounds familiar. Well, not really.... yeah, really." Nabiki replied, a smile   
creeping on her face.  
  
"So, he's got a coconut fetish, and you steal his nuts," Rei and Nabiki both let a little  
snicker escape- "and now you're on a plane to America? How's that work?"  
  
"Well, that was right at the start of the school year. Pineapple Nazi had to be there for  
the opening of the school. But he'd just been back from America, where he'd opened up an   
exchange program.."  
  
Rei nodded, transfixed by the girl's _interesting_ story.  
"Okay, so.. you're an exchange student? how's that work as punishment?"  
  
"I don't know yet. You see, I figured out that we were being punished only a few minutes   
ago... and that means it hasn't, and won't even occur to anyone else. The nut is   
apparently more cunning than I thought."  
  
"Okay... punishment?"  
  
"Oh, yeah. I don't know if it's punishment, so much, as getting the major threats out   
of the way. He's probably shaving heads back at good ol' Furinkan right now."  
  
"Oh, so he's eliminating the competition through bribery, eh?"  
  
"I somehow doubt this trip is going to be all fun, though..."  
  
"Relax. It'll be interesting."  
  
"That's what I'm afraid of!" Nabiki said.  
  
"Why? If it ain't life threatening, let it slide, I say."  
  
"That's easy for you to say. I get lethal doses of interest every day."  
  
"Well, look at me. I'm an exchange student, like you. This might be the most interesting  
thing that has ever happened to me. I watch too much T.V., I read romance novels and   
a lot of manga- boys and girls'. I want to take part in interest, be interesting.   
Like you. I want to travel the world, meet exciting people, and do amazing things.   
I want adventure- and I think I'm going to get some of it. I'll be a female Indiana   
Jones- dashing, sexy and ultra-cool."  
  
"You certainly are interesting. you have a weird outlook on life. I'm actually not   
interesting." Nabiki said with a smile.   
  
"It keeps me out of trouble. Mostly."  
  
"Does it make you happy, being the normal core of an interesting life?" Rei asked,   
her tone earnest- she wasn't calling Nabiki "normal", so much as "Comparatively   
uninteresting."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"I'm glad for you." Rei responded.  
  
Rei stood up, and removed her backpack from the overhead compartment.  
Rei looked down at Nabiki with a grin on her face, and jerked her head towards the  
aisle.  
  
The captain, a handsome man in his late twenties/early thirties, was coming down   
the aisle, making pleasantries.  
  
Rei walked up to the captain, and bumped into him, squeezing by his side on her way   
to the bathroom. Nabiki saw Rei's hand go where she imagined Rei's mother would not   
be proud seeing it go. The pilot twitched noticeably.  
  
Meanwhile...  
  
Kuno looked out on the wing again. at first he saw nothing, but then his eyes, keen   
as the finest hunter's, glimpsed tiny hands at work, sullying the wing of the great   
mechanical bird, this thing of rare beauty which carried him aloft.  
  
Kuno did what any man would do at this point.  
  
He pushed the service call button.  
  
#beep#  
  
the stewardess made her way down the aisle, recongnizing the boy as one of Nabiki's   
"Bewares".  
  
"How may I help you?"  
  
"There is an Oni on the wing! can you not do something?"  
the stewardess looked out the window.  
  
"I'm sorry sir, I don't see anything. Can I get anything for you? Tylenol, Ibuprofen,  
Aspirin, Xanax? I recommend the Xanax"  
  
"No woman! There is an oni on the wing!"  
  
"I'm sorry sir. Why don't you just relax..."  
  
"Fine! when we are torn asunder in the raging Atlantic, I will not be to blame! Curse   
that Saotome... this must be one of his plots to ensnare my fierce warrior's spirit so  
that he may vex both Akane Tendo and the pigtailed girl! Alas, I cannot refrain. Saotome,  
I will smite thee, and save both Tendo Akane and the pigtailed girl!" cried the kendo   
artist, jumping up from his seat and brushing the stewardess aside.  
  
"We're over the Pacific, Sir..." she said weakly as she stumbled out of the enraged youth's way.  
  
Kuno was so preoccupied by his need to talk to the pilot, he never did see the syringe of extra   
strength sedative until after the flight attendant injected it. "Thou must be a minion of the evil   
Saotomeee...." was the last thing he said for the rest of the flight.   
  
  
--------  
One Day Ago....  
  
"Look here, boy. Until we find out where your parents are, we're going to have you stay  
with a family here in town."  
  
"Look, I told you already. I can take care of myself. Just point me towards Furinkan High  
School and I'll be just fine."  
Hibiki Ryoga looked at the officer.  
  
"Look, son, I already told you. I can't just let a foreign minor go wandering off. It's   
against the law for you to be here like this anyways! You need a Passport!"  
  
Ryoga gulped a little bit. The law? he didn't want to mess with the law. He'd read that   
it had long arms.  
  
The cop smiled a little bit when the boy bought it- the poor kid. Abandoned on foreign   
soil like that by his parents. The boy just kept denying the obvious- that his parents   
had gotten rid of him. Lousy parents. They hadn't even declared him missing. It was like  
they expected this to happen. His continuing insistence that he was just lost was his   
own little way of blaming himself. Alan, the officer, was sure that he would calm down   
and be happy if he would just see what life with a loving family was like- and he knew   
just the family. Always willing to host foster children, and doubly fortuitous because   
of the language problem, Gren Yoshikawa and his wife were the perfect solution. In a week,  
the kid wouldn't want to go- and then they'd deal with the Japanese authorities about the   
adoption.  
  
--------  
America  
  
SeaTac international airport wasn't nearly as big as the bustling hub the students had   
flown out of, Tokyo International, but nonetheless it was large and impressive. Plenty   
of glass, cool insides, even cooler than the comfortable plane. It was September, and it  
had still been pretty warm in Nerima when they had left. All these observations flowed   
away like a daydream as Saotome Ranma faced the task ahead of him. He'd left behind a sea  
of problems, but a very large lake had followed him here, and was no doubt going to try   
and make him not notice the difference.  
  
And right now, the blue waters of that misfortune looked like a 12 year old girl in a   
yellow dress.  
"All right students, this way! Be good all of you!" she said chirpily.  
  
Akane on one side, Ukyou on the other,with Nabiki following straight behind. Kuno was on a  
luggage cart that Nabiki had snagged from somewhere and was idly pulling along behind her.  
  
  
most of the girls were giggling about something, while the guys were trying not to look too   
touristy, and failing _miserably_. They gathered outside the gate, and waited in little  
clusters- well, one big cluster, essentially centered around Akane, what with the Ranma   
fan club missing save one. One, who of course, was glomping Ranma. Who, of course, was   
getting chewed out by Akane. Who was of course, being harassed by Kuno(recently conscious),   
from the luggage cart. Nabiki sat idly by, and took a look about to see if she   
could see Rei. She didn't, and went back to watching the fray. She could hardly pull her   
eyes away.   
  
*I'm glad I'm not in there* Nabiki said to herself.  
she sighed one last time before everybody's little disaster was interrupted.  
  
Several Americans, in nice clothes, were gathering in a little group near the students,  
and Nabiki assumed from the way they were looking at the students, they must be the   
host families.   
  
One man, near the front, popped open a briefcase, and began to remove cards from it.   
  
*Name Cards*, Nabiki thought. *That avoids language problems.*  
  
He moved around the crowd, calling out American names and handing cards to couples,   
who then held them. One woman held up two cards- Kuonji Ukyou and Tendo Akane. Nabiki  
could hardly keep from laughing out loud at the poor woman's fate. Of course, it could  
be worse- she could get Ranma- like this woman over there- she looked kind of like   
what Nabiki imagined Kasumi would look like after she had a few kids- nice, radiating  
sweetness and still a beautiful woman. She had the card up for Gosunkugi Hikaru, too.   
That was alright. Other than a few candles setting off a fire alarm or two, he was damn  
harmless.  
an nice looking older woman held up a sign with Nabiki's name on it. Nabiki walked over,  
and introduced herself in her pained but practiced english...  
  
---------------  
  
Ranma watched as the people held their signs up, with people's names on them.  
Ranma saw Akane's name. "Hey Akane, there we are. Over there." he said, and unthinkingly,  
grabbed her hand and brought her through the crowd of students moving forward.  
  
"You must be Tendo Akane" said the woman, a nice looking redhead with wavy hair in her   
early thirties. "I'm Jackie Morris, pleased to meet you." she said, sticking out her   
hand. Akane shook it- the woman had a strong grip, although she was obviously no   
martial artist.   
  
"So, etoh... where are we going?" Ranma asked.   
  
"Is this your boyfriend?" Jackie asked Akane.  
  
Akane looked stunned, then confused, then she uttered in halting english- "That not-smart  
girl toucher? No."  
  
Jackie shrugged. "Well, he isn't staying at our house."  
  
"What?" the two of them cried in japanese.  
  
"Nanoo nanoo?" replied Jackie, a puzzled look on her face.  
  
Ranma spun around in reply to a tap on his shoulder.  
"Ano...are you Ranma Saotome?" asked a very pretty older japanese woman- 40, Ranma   
guessed.   
Ranma had paid extra special attention to this part of class. "Yeah, I'm Ranma   
Saotome of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts." he said smugly.  
She just smiled. "I'm Sylvie, and I'll be your host mother"  
Ranma chased an errant thought.  
  
Akane's host mother spoke up. "Hiya, Sylvie" Jackie said.(in english)  
  
"Hello, Jackie-san" Sylvie replied.   
  
Ranma looked at Akane. He wasn't going to be under the same roof as her. That   
thought brought a strange feeling   
to him, that he wasn't ready to admit to himself. His chest felt a little   
constricted, he was taking short, slow breaths,   
and he was looking right at her.  
  
"Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow, Ranma"  
  
"No escaping the inevitable, is there?" Ranma said. No matter how hard he tried,  
he couldn't even kind of stop himself.  
  
"JERK!" Akane shouted as she whacked him upside the head.  
  
The group piled out of the airport after having grabbed their luggage from the   
claim. Ranma ended up carrying Ukyou's   
and Akane's in addition to his own, but was startled not to receive sympathy from  
any of his fellow students. Hmph.... some friends they are Ranma thought to himself.  
  
---  
Sylvie's home was awfully large. They put him to rest in a room two times as large  
as the Tendo dining room. It had three beds at opposite ends of the rooms, each with   
their own nightstand and bookshelf.  
  
"you can sleep in the triplet's room here. Pick whichever one you like." Sylvie said   
with a grin, and patted Ranma on the back hard enough to scoot him into the room.  
One end of the room had the wall decorated with maps and pictures of far off places, the   
other end had models, action figures and sports cards on the wall, many of manga and   
anime Ranma recognized and a few he even read. The third section   
had a T.V., a Playstation, as well as being decorated with movie posters. Ranma recognized   
"Man on the Moon". All had plenty of athletic trophies.  
  
Gosunkugi looked into the room, a face of dread marked clearly. It wasn't that he was   
afraid of the room- oh no. He was in dread of the scenes between him and Ranma that   
were nightmarrishly playing in his imagination.  
  
Ranma picked the action figures and the sports cards, and sat down on the bed.  
  
"Well, Ranma-san, Hikaru-san" Sylvie said gently in japanese. "We'll let you go to sleep."  
  
Gosunkugi picked the TV wall and sat down. In his relatively active and informed (As far as   
America was concerned) mind, Hikaru set out on a mental journey to figure out why such a   
large house had only one bedroom for their three boys. Why hadn't they put them in one of   
the other rooms?  
  
Ranma saw wisdom in Sylvie's words, and quickly 'hito de sacku'.  
  
  
---  
Jackie brought Akane and Ukyou back to a very middle class home. It was an American middle  
class home, so it was as nice as say, Ryoga's, back in Japan.   
  
"Here is my house, hope you like it" Jackie stated simply as she opened the door. "It gets   
pretty hectic around here sometimes, but we cleaned up for you."  
  
Inside, the girls found a living room with two couches, a big TV, a coffee table, a man, a   
15 year old girl and a little girl, maybe 5 years old.  
  
"This is my husband, Jack. Jack, this is Akane, and her friend, Ukyou"  
  
Ukyou winced slightly at being called Akane's "friend". Of course, she knew they probably   
were friends, but still, Akane was a rival. Not much of a rival, but a rival nonetheless.  
  
"Pleased to meet you" Jack said pleasantly. His voice sounded tired, and there were bags   
under his eyes.  
  
"Jack had to work tonight, so he wasn't able to come meet you at the airport... but you'll   
be able to talk when he's less tired. He's had a long day" Jackie explained.  
  
Akane struggled, but understood what Jackie was saying. "I understand" she said demurely.   
Her shy side was being brought out. Ukyou's english wasn't even as good as Akane's, so she   
just nodded.  
  
Jackie threw an arm around her shoulder. "Don't be shy. Come on. This is my daughter Rose,   
here. She's 15 and a half" she said lightheartedly. Rose looked up, smiled, and said hello   
and turned back to the T.V.  
"Rose, get up here and properly introduce yourself to our guests!. Sometimes she can be so   
lazy!" she added as   
an aside to Akane.  
  
Rose got up, and made her way around the couch as her mother got to the "Lazy" part.  
"MooooM!"  
  
"And that's my other daughter, Posie"  
"She is very cute" Akane said, looking at the sleeping little girl. It was true, she was cute.  
  
"ano..."  
  
"Yes, Akane?" Jackie asked.  
  
"Your name is Jackie, and his name is Jack?"  
  
"Yeah. Confusing, isn't it? ah, the things I put up with for love" came Jackie's world weary,  
yet obviously happy reply.  
  
"That's my line, dear" came Jack's reply.  
  
Akane understood, and started to laugh.  
-------  
Nabiki strolled with her host Mother, Anna, into her home. It wasn't as big as the   
Tendo Dojo, although it was if you didn't count the actual Dojo. It was white, with paneled walls.   
Big windows shone into what must be a living room, which had bookshelves brimming with books   
visible from the windows outside. It was nice- definitely not up to Kasumi's cleanliness standard,   
but nice nonetheless.  
  
Anna turned to Nabiki. "You'll be staying in my son's bedroom, over there." she said, pointing to   
a door at the end of the well furnished living room.  
  
Nabiki smiled. "Thank you, Anna"  
  
"I'm glad you call me Anna. I can't bear formality."  
  
"Me either."  
  
"Your english is very good."  
  
"My vocabulary is all right, but the rest.. is okay. I worked really hard so I wouldn't sound..."   
Nabiki started, a thoughtful look on her face.  
  
"You sound very educated." Anna said, smiling. "Much better than mine when I started."  
  
"Well, where I'm from we have this girl who always comes by to see my sister's... umm.. Iinazuke..  
it means they are going to get married..."   
  
"Fiancee?" Anna supplied.  
  
"Yeah. And she doesn't speak Japanese well at all, so she always sounds even dumber than she is."  
  
"So you don't like this girl? Why is she visiting your sister's fiancee, anyways?"  
  
Nabiki's eyelids dropped halfway down, forming her usual sly look. "Oh, you'll see soon enough,   
I suppose."  
  
----  
  
"Honey, I'm home!" Called Gren through the doorway of his home. He turned to his guest, giving   
him a smile. "This is my home. Come on in, make yourself at home."  
  
Ryoga smiled back. This guy had been awfully nice. He hoped he could get out of here pretty soon,   
as soon as the deal with his parents was cleared up. Still, getting away from Akane would   
help him clear his head and make his focus on defeating Ranma that much easier.  
  
"Thank you." the lost boy replied.  
  
He walked inside, and slid his shoes over next to a pair of worn chinese slippers. That's   
odd... he thought, his mind occupied elsewhere.  
  
Gren grabbed his shoulder, and looked him in the eyes. "I mean it. Make yourself at home.   
I'll show you where you'll be staying. And you can speak japanese as much as you need, but   
since I'll be enrolling you in school tomorrow, we should definitely practice your english."  
  
"Hai." Ryoga replied.  
  
"Don't get smart with me, kid." Gren said, and then laughed.  
  
He and Ryoga walked past the entranceway, covered in pictures of Gren, and his lovely wife.   
Ryoga imagined himself with Akane in the pictures as he walked by. They obviously had had a   
large family- three children. It was interesting how   
their children had turned out- One had a slender build, one had a medium build, and the other  
was almost as big as Ryoga.  
  
  
"Looking at the family, eh?" asked Gren.  
  
Ryoga shook himself out of his daydream. "Oh. Yeah. you look happy."  
  
Gren smiled brightly. "I think we are."  
  
They reached the hallway, and Gren pointed down the hallway. "It's that one there- the open door."  
  
Ryoga smiled. "Thank you." he said, and made his way down.   
Since he could see his destination from his starting point, Ryoga did _not_ get lost.  
  
Gren made his way down to the kitchen, where he saw his wife.  
  
"Hello, dear."  
  
"Hello, sweetie." Gren replied.  
  
"How was your day?" Gren's wife asked.  
  
"Well, Alan called, and asked me to put up a runaway. He might not even be a runaway though-  
it looks like he was abandoned. He's Japanese."  
  
"Oh. I suppose you could have told me about this?" she asked, a faint look of displeasure   
crossing her face.  
  
"I could have, but I know what you would have said. Ever since the boys left, it's been   
too quiet."  
  
"Well, we do have those two exchange students."  
  
"Huh? Oh, was that today?" Gren said.  
  
"Yes, dear. You're right though, I don't mind. They'll probably be more comfortable having   
some more Japanese kids around the house. They'll get along just fine."  
  
  
----------  
  
Meanwhile  
  
----------  
  
Ryoga walked through the doorway, congratulating himself for being in the same house he   
started in, and reached inside for the light. He flicked the switch up, and the light   
filled the room.  
  
Ryoga's eyes alighted upon a gaunt figure, whose eyes were rimmed with dark circles as   
though he had not slept for twenty years- quite a feat, given the boy was obviously a teenager.   
As a matter of fact...  
  
You?!" screamed Gosunkugi Hikaru, obviously frightened to be in place for this meeting.   
Visions of Ranma and Ryoga fighting and his body being torn apart by loose pieces of the   
destroyed surroundings danced through his overactive imagination.  
  
Ryoga's eyes shot wide open as he took in this surprise. Here? Of all places?  
  
Ranma, as is his way, picked just this moment to sit up.  
  
"Hey, what's all the racket? What's going on?" he said, bringing his bleary eyes into focus  
on Ryoga's face. "You!" he said, hopping out of his bed, an angry scowl plastered on his face.  
"rrrRanmaaa!" Ryoga began, as usual- blinded by rage, the startling coincidence was lost   
on the two boys.   
  
"You stole my backpack!" Ryoga accused.  
  
"What do you mean? you stole MY backpack! And that's my shirt you're wearing!" Ranma   
countered. The lost boy was indeed wearing one of Ranma's signature blue silk shirts.  
  
The two closed across the room, and began to fight. Ryoga opened with a punch, which   
Ranma avoided, while Ranma opened with a kick that glanced off Ryoga's head. The two   
degenerated into a floor based brawl.  
  
Gosunkugi had had enough.  
  
"For the love of the Kami, knock it off!" he screamed. "We are guests, if you use your heads for   
something more than hitting each other to remember! Holy COW!"  
  
Ranma and Ryoga both turned to Gosunkugi, then returned to their battle.  
---------  
Meanwhile, downstairs...  
---------  
"Ah, it's good to have boys back in the house." Sylvie sighed happily.  
  
"I'll say, honey. I can't sleep with all the quiet going on." Gren replied.  
  
----------  
Meanwhile, across the Pacific Ocean...  
----------  
  
[Two days Ago]  
"you mean Ranma no here?" asked a bubbly, purple haired vision of feminine pulchritude.  
  
"that's Right. Ranma and Akane have been selected as exchange students to an American high   
school" replied a perky, long haired vision of domestic femininity. She was pretty beautiful herself.  
  
"Ranma... in... America?"  
  
"That's right, Shampoo."  
  
Shampoo looked thoughtful for a second. If Ranma's in America, then violent girl will be able   
to seduce him! he's mine, and I won't just let her get away with that.  
  
"America. Where go at America?"  
  
"Seattle, Washington"  
  
"XieXie" replied Shampoo, speaking her native tongue. Kasumi would guess it's meaning,   
anyways. She had known how to say thank you when she first got here- it wouldn't hurt   
them to learn a little of her language, anyways. After all, they were close friends of the family.   
They'd have to visit Ranma and her back in China, she supposed.  
Just not too often.  
  
----------  
Elsewhere...  
----------  
"My darling Ranma has been spirited away by my own father! oh, what tragedy!"  
  
"Yes, mistress Kuno. I am sure he misses you terribly."  
  
"I must take up and follow him immediately and save him from the clutches of that horrible   
horrible Tendo Akane, and her red haired harlot friend!"  
  
"now... now... mistress Kuno... don't they say that Absence makes the heart grow fonder?"   
replied the loyal Ninja. She needed to follow Ranma like a marshmallow needs a sledgehammer.  
"I am sure the merest moment longer than it will take me to follow him will be more than enough   
to drive his already longing heart into undescribable passion... Oh, my Darling Ranma-Sama...   
do not worry, Your Kodachi is on her way!"  
  
----------  
yet elsewhere....  
----------  
  
He was ready. it had been so long since he had seen her, he was sure she'd be all over her anger   
towards him. Or maybe, just maybe, she'd forgotten him entirely. Although it would be painful, it   
might just be better that way- they could start off fresh. She wouldn't think him such a pervert. her   
fiery temper- she was like a goddess brought to earth. Of course, there had been others... lots of   
others, actually... but there was still only one for him.  
He made his way to her home, and walked in through the door.  
  
Seeing only another girl, giving him an odd look, he called out her name.  
  
/  
Konatsu looked on in amazement as a Coconut tree, honest to goodness, with real coconuts growing   
on it, walked through the door of the restaurant. He was even more puzzled when it called for Ukyou.  
  
"Can... I ... help you, Mr. Coconut Tree?" Asked the pretty ninja sweetly.  
  
"Is Ukyou-sama not here?" asked the coconut tree.  
"She's in America." replied the ninja. "Myself and some exchange students are manning the store."  
  
As if on cue, a huge gout of flame erupted from behind the grill, and two teenaged boys leaped over   
it to freedom. As the flame disappeared, a remaining charred teen appeared from within the smoke.  
  
"Oh, sure. you can 'handle it'. But of course, you couldn't even handle GIVING ME A WARNING!"   
screamed the charred boy.  
  
"Look, a warning is a clue. And you just can't get a clue." replied one of the boys.  
  
"You can't even be given one. Or even stapled to one." added the other boy sagely.  
  
Konatsu regarded the coconut tree with the look of having the world's weight on his.. ah..her.. ah...   
whatever's shoulders.  
  
"Amyways, she'll be back after the school year is over" stated the Kunoichi.  
  
The coconut tree seemed to wilt as Konatsu watched. "Thanks, then" it said glumly, before shuffling   
out of the restaurant.  
  
-------------  
Jesus, there's a lot of meanwhiles and elsewheres, aren't there?  
-------------  
  
Principal Kuno sat about his office. He just couldn't focus today- no matter how much the thrill of   
Hawaii-anizing Furinkan was weighing on him, he couldn't pay complete attention to his work. He   
thought for a while about what was bothering him, and when he couldn't think of anything, he left to   
stroll about town on a walk.  
  
-------------  
  
For a moment, Gosunkugi Hikaru had thought that things were going to calm down between Ranma   
and Ryoga. He now knew much better. the fight had looked like it was going to end, but the two   
were struggling back to their feet (Only because they kept stopping the getting up process in order to   
hit each other.) Gosunkugi surmised that Ranma must have been pretty tired for Ryoga to get in so   
many hits. Not that the bandanna clad boy looked so hot himself.  
So, in a fit of brilliance, Hikaru made a break for it.  
  
---  
"Well, that's a big yell. I suppose it's my motherly duty to go and see what's going on?" Sylvie asked her husband.  
  
"Motherly what? you just want to watch. Well, you can go first, just so long as you don't block my view."  
  
"It's so good to have children back in the house."  
---  
Principal Kuno strolled down a street filled with vendors. He purchased a pineapple ice from a   
vendor and strolled down the road, deep in thought.   
  
Thead' beah it! I be worryin' that by lil' Tacchi be missin his fadda! I always be leavin him at   
home, but now I's at home and he a goan ovah to America. I bet Tacchi ver' homesick!  
  
And with that, principal Kuno set off in search of something that would remind Tatewaki of home.  
---  
Hikaru leapt out the door and turned down the hall, boucing off the wall across from the door   
painfully for extra speed. Just there, he bumped into his host mother.  
  
Hikaru looked at her nervously. "Ah... um... They're... they're fighting, Mrs. Yoshikawa."  
  
All of a sudden, as if on cue, Ryoga's body flew out the doorway, and _through_ the wall   
across from it. He crashed down into the hole he made, until only his feet were visible.   
  
With a cry of "rrrrRRRANMA!" he leapt out of the hole and returned to the battle.  
  
"Strong...Healthy boys!" muttered Sylvie excitedly.  
  
"They're gonna wreck your home, Mrs. Yoshikawa!" Hikaru nigh screamed.  
  
Ryoga AND Ranma flew out into the hallway, beating on each other tremendously.   
Cries of "Ow" and "you'll pay for that" rang down the wide hallway.  
  
"So... healthy.... just like my own boys!"  
  
"Don't you care that they're going to destroy your house, Mrs. Yoshikawa?" Hikaru   
asked, the nervousness fading. He was resigned to his fate, now.  
  
"Call me Sylvie, dear. And no, we've got good insurance. Say, why don't you join them!"   
added the relatively normal looking woman. She shot out her hand with martial speed,   
spun Hikaru by the shoulder, and pushed him into the fray.  
  
"AaaaaAAAAAH!" screamed Hikaru as he bumbled his way into the battle.  
  
Sylvie heard footsteps behind her, and leaned back as she fet her husband's arms around her.  
  
"It's like home again." he said, as Ranma swung Ryoga's still struggling body in a wide arc   
that demolished more of the wall.  
  
"Like home." she sighed contentedly.  
---  
What to buy my Tacchi that will remin' him o home! Principal Kuno pondered as he   
discarded his pineapple ice. As he did, he caught his reflection in a shop window.  
  
"Ah HAH! I bea Gettin' it! Hol' on Tacchi! your Fadda beah givin you what you need!"  
  
Then he watched in confusion as what looked like a garbage can with a unicycle wheel   
roll by, with a kid in a blue shirt with a yellow design on the front clutching two... were   
they motorcycle handles? didn't look like it. The garbage can had eyes painted or built   
into the front...  
  
"Your father said to stay put, Scott!" it said.  
  
Principal Kuno shrugged. He heard voices all the time. Garbage cans weren't all that surprising.  
  
---  
  
Nabiki was walking. Kasumi used to say that cleaning the kitchen at night helped her fall   
asleep, but Nabiki wasn't really the kitchen cleaning type. Besides, he host mother had   
probably cleaned the kitchen before she got there. So she'd settled for a little walk in the   
warm night air.  
  
She walked over towards a park that looked pretty dark. I better be careful not to get lost...  
As she walked down a cement path, she caught a little bit of a light blue out of the corner of her eye.  
  
"Rei?" Nabiki asked.  
  
Nothing replied.  
  
Nabiki shrugged and continued her walk.  
  
As she passed through a pathway overgrown with trees...  
*Rustle*  
  
"Who's there!" Nabiki said nervously.  
  
A twig snapped behind her, and she spun around with a backhand. She wasn't any Ranma,   
or even an Akane, but she did live at a dojo. Wht kind of father would hers be if he couldn't   
teach her to defend herself against...  
  
a 100 pound Japanese girl.  
  
"Owwwwww.... Nabiki, wat'd you do that for?" asked Rei.  
"You were sneaking up on me!" Nabiki exclaimed. "What did you expect from a single girl   
alone at night?"  
  
"You didn't have to hit me in the ear, you know." Rei replied, nonplussed.  
  
"You deserved it!"  
  
"You still didn't have to hit me in the ear."  
  
"So, what are you doing out here?"  
  
"I couldn't sleep" replied the blue haired girl.  
  
"You either?" Nabiki said. "I haven't been able to sleep for two weeks."  
  
"You know, we should do something really exciting. That would get the adrenaline   
pumping, get us real nervous. Then afterwards, we could sleep out of exhaustion and relief."  
  
"Oh, no. No more excitement for today."  
  
"Aw, come on. Please? for a friend?"  
  
"Since when were we friends? we just met on a plane yesterday." Nabiki answered with a   
half lidded look of disdain.  
  
"What better reason to be friends? we shared a horrible experience together." Rei asked.  
  
"What horrible experience?" Nabiki asked, flustered.  
  
"Airline food" stated the stately young woman.  
  
Nabiki couldn't help it, and she laughed.  
  
"Shhh.... shut up! I have just the thing to put us to sleep, but we have to be quiet!" Rei   
whispered hoarsely.  
  
"Okay, okay. What is it?" Nabiki asked. She'd be sure to hold all of this over Rei in the future...  
  
"It's... a time capsule."  
  
"A what?"  
  
"People bury stuff in em' so that people from later periods will be able to tell wha they lived like.   
There's one int his park- I saw a sign for it- and they're gonna open it up next july."  
  
"I'm not gonna steal a time capsule!"  
  
"Of course not. We're going to steal what's in it."  
  
"That is horrible!" Nabiki said. She didn't think she liked this idea of Rei's at all.  
  
"I know. We'll have to come up with a much better adventure next time. We've got to have   
standards, after all." Rei said, grabbing Nabiki's hand and dragging her along.  
  
"Who said anything about a next time!" Nabiki said angrily as she was dragged along.  
  
-----  
Principal Kuno was headed back to the school. Of course, Rob's Hawaiian products   
would no longer have anything to do with him, but he could find his target in other ways...  
  
Just then, a coconut tree walked across his path.  
  
"Hootah! My prayahs be answered!" cried the principal, as he snatched up the coconut   
tree he had been looking for and dragged it off to be shipped, despite it's insistence that   
it was not a tree. He could clearly see that it _was_ a tree after all, and he was used to   
hearing voices telling him things like that.  
  
--------------  
  
The Next Day  
  
--------------  
  
Ukyou made her way down the wide street towards the house where Ranma was staying.   
The wide street, lined on each side with trees, was a wonder for someone who had spent   
so much time in Tokyo, or even anywhere in Japan, for that matter. Except maybe Ryoga   
she snickered to herself.  
  
a blur of purple and a familiar ringing sound jarred her out of her humourous recollection.  
  
Ukyou watched in amazement as the all too familiar Chinese Amazon flew down the   
unfamiliar street on her bike, her upturned hand holding a tray of steaming buns.  
  
As suddenly as it had begun, Ukyou shook herself free of the amazement and ground   
her teeth in frustration. She'd be damned if she was just going to let that Chinese hussy   
ruin everything.  
  
Shampoo pedaled along, humming merrily to herself. Ranma was so funny to think he   
could just get away like that. IT had hurt her feelings, sure, but she would forgive him.   
He was Ranma, after all. Shampoo began a popular fantasy of hers where Ranma   
suddenly realized how much Shampoo's various efforts to ensnare his love meant,   
and returned them and...  
  
Shampoo's world disappeared into a cloud of flowers and hearts as she sighed a   
contented little sigh.  
  
Then that world disappeared into a cloud of pavement.  
  
Ukyou looked on at the wrecked amazon. The manhole cover had trashed the   
bike and sent her face first into the pavement, which had shattered under the impact.  
Uh-oh... I think I may have overdone it! Ukyou lamented internally. Sure,   
she disliked Shampoo, but killing her hadn't been on the agenda. She'd just   
been so furious to see her here, of all places. She ran over to the wrecked girl,   
and rolled her over.  
  
Shampoo was breathing, and fluttered her eyes open.  
  
"Spatula Girl!" she said, raising her arm to slap Ukyou, who defended herself.  
  
"What do you think you're doing, Shampoo? Trying to make Ranma eat these buns?"  
  
"None Of Spatula Girl's Business! Now get off Shampoo before Shampoo give kiss of death."  
  
"Anytime, Sugar. But first, you're looking a little slim. I think you need to put some weight on."  
  
With that, the Okonomiyaki chef grabbed one of the overturned meat buns, and jammed   
it into Shampoo's mouth. Shampoo struggled fiercely, but even her superioir strength   
was not enough to overcome the advantage of position that Ukyou had. Ukyou held   
the amazon's lips shut and her nose closed.  
  
"Eat it, Sugar. you'll feel better."  
  
Shampoo shook her head violently.   
  
"Don't worry, honey, if it's some kind of love trinket, I won't go for you any more than   
Ranma does." Ukyou sneered.   
  
Shampoo began to chew.  
  
"That's a girl." Ukyou said. What am I doing? am I sinking to her level?  
  
Her rage disappearing, Ukyou stood up, letting go of the fallen Amazon.  
"Look, Shampoo, I'm sorry. I was just a little surprised to see you here..."  
  
Shampoo rose to her feet, her face smudged with a little dirt. Her beautiful face   
was nothing but an expression of pure rage.  
  
"Look, Shampoo, I'm sorry. What were those buns, anyways?" Ukyou asked nervously.  
Shampoo took a strange look on her face, as if she was trying to swallow. Then, in a torn   
sounding voice, she revealed the secret of the buns.  
  
"Is Magic tell-truth buns"  
  
"What were you going to do with that?" Ukyou asked, perplexed. As Shampoo began to   
stomp towards her, she took a step back. Shampoo had a look Ukyou had never seen   
before, and she didn't want to mess with it.  
  
"Make. Ranma. Say. He. Love. Shampoo." Shampoo spat angrily.  
  
"Ranchan loves me, not you!" Ukyou said reflexively.  
  
"Shampoo fight you now." the Amazon stated.  
  
Her fires of wrath stoked, Ukyou responded. "Anytime, Sugar."  
Ukyou reached up and unlimbered her battle spatula, bringing it down at a diagonal angle   
as she usually did. But before her swing could be completed, Shampoo closed the   
difference between them, holding Ukyou's elbow up with an iron grip that Ukyou   
could feel grinding on her very bones.  
  
"Owwww." said Ukyou, before the air was brutally evacuated from her lungs by   
Shampoo's other hand meeting with her stomach.  
  
Ukyou was seriously winded by the blow, but she hadn't trained hard with her   
Spatula by the raging sea for nothing. She hopped back, giving herself room to   
swing.  
  
Shampoo charged forward, right where Ukyou had wanted her to. With a   
colossal swing, Ukyou brought the side of her spatula right into Shampoo's side...  
  
Or so she would have, if Shampoo hadn't nimbly flipped over the spatula-   
Shampoo's airborne momentum carried her foot first into Ukyou's stomach.  
  
Ukyou collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.  
  
Shampoo reached down and picked up her fallen rival. "Shampoo see how you   
like it." she said, pulling Ukyou into an upright position with one hand. Ukyou tried   
to pant for mercy, but all that came out was a ragged gasp for air. She threw a   
punch, which Shampoo painfully chopped aside via her forearm.  
  
I always thought that we were equals... Ukyou thought as Shampoo punched   
her in the gut twice more. Shampoo's fist then connected with Ukyou's chin, launching   
her up more than twenty feet. She watched, already in agony, as Shampoo prepared a   
kick for her trip down.  
  
Ukyou didn't remember it.  
  
Mousse swept around the building that Cologne had rented. In a day or two, the equipment   
from Japan would arrive, and the Nekohanten would reopen, here in America. Mousse, to be   
truthful, was kind of happy about this arrangement. Of course, Ranma was still around, but even   
Mousse, self deluding as he is, hadn't dared hope that Ranma would be out of the equasion for   
long. Still, America had wider, more open spaces, cleaner air, and a freer attitude.  
  
Not to mention much better eyecare.  
  
Mousse allowed himself a common daydream in which, his vision restored, he defeated Ranma   
and made Shampoo his wife. In a flash, she defamed every bit of Ranma in comparison with the   
mighty invincible warrior of the gods that he had become, Mousse.  
  
His daydream was, as was becoming a pattern, shattered by the slam of the heavy wooden door   
that signified Shampoo's arrival.  
  
"Shampoo, my love! Where have you been?" he cried out.  
  
Shampoo's face twisted up, and it looked like she was swallowing. Then, a look of resignment   
crossed her face.  
  
"Shampoo in fight with Spatula Girl."  
  
"Kuonji? but why?"  
  
"She ambush me, force me to eat tell truth bun for Ranma" Shampoo stated, a look of sheer   
terror across her face.  
  
"She made you eat one?" Mousse asked, his face beginning to turn red with anger.  
  
"Yes." Shampoo stated simply.  
  
Upon Mousse's shoulders, or, at least in the shoulders of his mind, appeared two little figures.  
  
"You should be concerned with how to help Shampoo right now, Mousse." said Chibi-Kasumi.  
  
"Oh, forget that. Ask her how she feels about you. When are you going to have an opportunity   
like this again?" replied Chibi-Nabiki, fondling her spiked tail with one hand.  
  
"Shampoo may be hurt by your actions, Mousse. She mey not forgive you." stated   
Chibi-Kasumi, illuminated by her halo.  
  
"So what? you can ask her how to make it up to her, Mousse." replied Chibi-Nabiki,   
disinterestedly feeling the tip of her horns for sharpness.  
  
"And what if she says she doesn't love you, Mousse? how will you feel?" Chibi-Kasumi   
said, for once fixing a glare on her imaginary Chibi-little sister.  
  
"Even if she does, Mousse, you can ask her how you could be more of a man and more   
loveable to her. If you don't do this, I see wedding bells in your future. As in, you being   
served at Shampoo and Ranma's wedding!" Nabiki stated, selling ever point.  
  
"I don't... know..." Mousse stumbled verbally.  
  
Shampoo stared at Mousse as he talked to himself.  
  
"It's wrong, Mousse. Haven't you always wanted to win Shampoo's love fairly?"   
stated Chibi-Kasumi.  
  
"This is fair. Shampoo has always treated you like dirt, Mousse. And it's not like   
the love is artificial. She's just telling you what she should have told you, her _destined_   
husband, from the beginning. you're just taking what is yours. She'll be happier this way."  
  
Chibi Kasumi tuned her back.  
  
"Shampoo would do it if the tables were turned, Mousse. I'd bet 100,000 yen on this   
at 1 to 20 odds."  
  
Mousse took on a look of being impressed before Shampoo's dumbfounded eyes.  
  
"Mousse? Is you okay?"  
  
If Nabiki'd bet money on it, then it's definetely the way to go...  
  
"Shampoo, How do.... er... ah... you ... feel about me?"  
  
Shampoo's face contorted with pure dread.  
No! If I tell him, he'll double, triple his efforts!  
her face scrunched up. Her hands slapped to her mouth. she made repeated gulping   
sounds as she tried to swallow the very words as they tore through her throat and out   
her mouth.  
  
[I like you a lot, Mousse. I just don't love you.] she stated in Chinese.  
  
Mousse looked on, stunned.  
  
Chibi Nabiki pressed. "Go on, stupid. Ask her some more questions."  
  
"Well, then, Shampoo, why do you treat me so bad?"  
  
"Because Shampoo want you to go away. Shampoo no want you to get hurt. Rather   
you hate Shampoo. But you no listen."  
  
At this point, Shampoo brought her hand out in a wide chopping arc- the kind that was  
clear as water to see, but hurt like the Devil himself- She'd stop Mousse from asking any  
more questions.  
Mousse stepped back, and the knife hand only connected like a slap, turning his head   
to the side. Red faced, he turned back to Shampoo.  
  
"How can I do it, Shampoo? Make you love me?"  
  
Shampoo tripled her efforts to stop herself, to absolutely no avail.  
  
"Shampoo no know. Be more of man."  
  
"How? by curing myself of the curse?" Mousse asked.  
  
"No, that no matter to Shampoo. Airen turn to girl, see? no, be more manly."  
  
"Are you going to hold this against me, Shampoo?" Mousse asked nervously.  
  
"Yes." Shampoo stated grimly. The words hadn't even forced themselves.   
She fixed Mousse with a threatening glare.  
  
"How can I be more of a man?"  
"No be so clingy. Mousse try be independent. No act like Shampoo center of   
Universe. Have own opinion, and no be so stupid all time." Shampoo said, sighing.  
  
With that, Mousse turned his back.  
  
"I can do it for you, Shampoo! I can do it! I will be leaving on a training trip, to   
make myself more of a man. And when I return, I will make you my bride!"   
Mousse gloated, laughing madly to himself.  
  
"What's going on here?" Cologne asked. Both Amazon teens whirled to face the   
matriarch, who perched on her staff looking curiously at the two of them. Their   
faces were identical masks of shame and fear, but their voices said very different  
things.  
  
"Oh, Nothing.. ahahahaha... matriarch."  
  
Shampoo rolled her eyes. "Shampoo forced to eat tell truth buns by spatula girl.   
Mousse ask Shampoo how to make Shampoo fall in love with Mousse." Shampoo   
summarized.  
  
It was a good thing Mousse had already packed, because Air Cologne has very   
sudden departures.  
  
And terrible inflight service.  
  
---  
A tall, impressive figure, clad in an exquisitely tailored businessman style suit   
examined the package.  
  
"So, it's from Kuno, is it?" it began in a sexy, scottish accented drawl that causes   
women to lose control of their knees and tongues.  
  
"Yes sir. But I believe I have just the thing." replied a sultry woman's voice in a   
heavy british accent. She was as used to it as a woman could get, by now.  
  
The package was loaded into a heavy iron box.  
  
"There's no telling how dangerous this thing could be." said the woman. "So   
we have to be absolutely careful."  
  
"But it was addressed to his son." added a third voice, also in a british accent.   
This time it was male. "I didn't see any weapon hardpoints, old chap."  
  
"But he's a madman. it could be a haircutting implement of devious efficiency."   
said the woman.  
  
*BOOM*  
just then, a bright flash leaked slightly from the rim of the box the package had   
been sealed in.   
  
"It's settled. The nut's plot has been cracked." said the figure.  
  
the third voice groaned, while the woman swooned.  
  
---  
Ranma's eyes flew open. He was sore, that much he knew, and he was sleeping   
on an uneven surface.  
  
He sat up groggily, and looked around. Rubble... he thought. Musta been in   
a fight... he surmised. He looked around, and found that he had been sleeping   
on top of the unconscious Gosunkugi Hikaru. Ryoga was unconscious as well,   
planted in the wall aside the doorframe, lower body in their room, upper body   
facing Ranma. With a snort, his head bobbed up as well, looking Ranma in the   
eyes.  
  
"Hey Ryoga, you little pig. Long time no see." Ranma said with a grin.  
  
"Shut up, Ranma. Why did you attack me?"  
  
"What do you mean 'why'? Like you ever need a reason! besides, you stole my   
backpack!" Ranma said, miffed.  
  
"Oh. Ahhehe... Sorry..." Ryoga said. "It's by the doorway."  
  
"Guess I better go get it. It could take you all day."  
  
"Shut up, Ranma."  
  
As Ranma got up, he squeezed the air out of Gosunkugi. With a gasp, he woke   
up as well.  
  
The three of them shuffled down the stairs, too tired to fight much, and made their   
way to the kitchen, where they were greeted by the delicious smell of fresh baked   
bread, eggs and bacon.  
  
"Hey, bacon!" Ranma said cheerfully as he reached the bottom step. "Nothing's   
better than a _well_ cooked piece of bacon!"  
  
"Grrr....."  
  
"Ranma, use your english please!" came Sylvie's call from the kitchen.  
  
"Sorry, Ma'm" Ranma replied, switching to his english.  
  
"Ranma, you speak english?" Ryoga asked.  
  
"Yeah." Ranma replied in a thick accent. However, his accent didn't sound meek,   
as a lot of japanese speakers do. It sounded, well, like Ranma.   
"Your accent is good, Ryoga."  
  
"Well, I learn by copying english spoke person only" replied Ryoga, trying to piece   
together the sentence he wanted. "except I know few words" he finished.  
  
"My vocabulary pretty good. But I need to work on my accent." Ranma said.  
  
Hikaru was unimpressed. He'd taken English since elementary school. His accent   
wasn't much better than Ranma's, but that was pretty much all that was wrong   
with his english.  
  
The three boys sat down at the table in the dining room, where Gren was already   
waiting, reading a newspaper out loud to his wife, who was in the kitchen cooking.  
  
"Oh, hey boys. You going to be ready for school soon?" Gren asked.  
  
"Don't be silly, honey. They need to take showers" Sylvie supplied. "Go ahead,   
boys. The bathroom is across from your room. Of course, you know that, since   
you can see inside it now." she said with a big smile.  
  
Hikaru looked at her like she was from another planet. She wasn't, but the look   
was nonetheless pretty justified.  
---  
The three boys stepped out onto the porch, Gren behind them. His arm pointed   
out over their collective shoulders at a big lot with a lot of buildings down one of   
the streets the house was on the corner of. A tall clock tower, reminiscent of   
Furinkan's, marked it clearly.  
  
"That's the school there, boys."  
  
"It looks nothing like our school" Hikaru said.  
  
"That's because this is a magnet school, and not even a normal American school."  
  
Ryoga's head turned and he caught eye of Akane walking up the street towards Gren's house.  
"A-Akane?" he said aloud.  
  
"Ryoga!" Akane exclaimed.  
  
"H..hello" Ryoga muttered. Ranma tried his best to look bored.  
  
What are you doing here, Ryoga? I'm so glad to see you! oh, and   
_hi_, Ranma." Akane said, completely fooled by his act.  
  
"I...ah, was just in the neighborhood." Ryoga managed.  
  
"He'll be staying with us for a while, Akane." Gren said. "Hi, I'm Gren. I don't think we've met."  
  
Ranma, too busy humming to himself and pretending to be bored, didn't catch that last nugget   
of information from Gren. A shame, really, because his bored act wasn't fooling anyone but  
Akane.  
Gosunkugi turned away from the group on the porch and clapped his hands together in an   
impromptu prayer for protection/  
"Hello." Akane said.  
  
"Well, you kids need to head off to school. I'm sure you can manage. Just go to the desk,   
and tell them your names. You shouldn't have any problems." he said, before turning back   
into the house. "Nice to meet you, Akane."  
  
"Arigato" Akane replied.  
  
With that, the four set off to school. Akane, in her surprise, completely forgot to ask   
Ranma if he'd seen Ukyou.  
  
----  
Gren walked back into his house, finding Sylvie kneeling by the couch.  
  
"Hey hon, What's up?" Gren asked.  
  
"Just giving due thanks for these wonderful children." Sylvie replied.  
  
"I know. They seem to know one another already. They get along so well." Gren said  
with a smile.  
  
"I'm so happy. With our boys gone, it was getting too quiet around here."  
  
"Here here. Say, Ryoga seemed to know one of the other exchange students, a  
girl named Akane. He was a little tongue tied around her... You don't suppose maybe  
he ran away here to be near her, do you?" Gren asked. "It does seem like a large...  
coincidence."  
  
"There's no such thing as a coincidence, Gren. It's a blessing."  
  
"Still, I think I'll ask him about it tomorrow."  
----  
  
  
When the group arrived, they were greeted by an eerily familiar sight- boys being   
flung around the front grounds by an unknown force. Ranma reached back and   
touched Akane on the head, without turning.  
  
"What are you doing, Ranma?" Akane asked, pushing Ranma's fingers away from   
her eyes.  
  
"Just checking" Ranma replied, amazed.  
  
In just a moment, the dust settled, and in the middle of the carnage stood a very   
pissed off Chinese Amazon.  
  
"Shampoo?!" Ranma said aloud. Ryoga slapped his head, Akane fumed, and   
Hikaru looked perplexed.  
  
The panting chinese amazon made her way over to the four of them.  
  
"Shampoo here looking for..." She managed in her broken Japanese before   
she was interrupted.  
  
"Son in law..." came the voice of Cologne. In English.  
  
"AAAAHHHH!" Ranma screamed. He shouldn't have been surprised, after   
all this time, but he was. he had only been here a day!  
Cologne turned to the panting Shampoo.  
  
"Shampoo? What happened?" she asked in Japanese.  
  
"Shampoo ask stupid american boy where Ranma. He say he don't know.   
He ask Shampoo on date. Shampoo say no. He ask why."  
  
"So? He can't have been foolish enough to attack you..."  
  
"He very strong martial artist. Also speak Chinese. And tell his friends. They   
want date with Shampoo too"  
  
Cologne chuckled. "So, they all tried to beat you up? You did tell them they'd   
have to defeat Ranma as well, didn't you? Oh, of course you did."  
  
"Shampoo no get time to tell him that part. Was explaining about Chinese   
Amazon tradition." Shampoo supplied.  
  
Cologne laughed. "So they're all going to try to defeat you now, great granddaughter.   
The irony is, even if you told them the truth now, they'd think you were lying!" the   
elderly woman started to cackle, tears rising to the corners of her eyes.  
  
Shampoo wheezed out something in chinese that Ranma thought sounded pretty   
rude. He'd heard a few Chinese curses before. One of Ryoga's eyebrows dropped-   
apparently he had too, and Cologne bapped Shampoo on the top of the head with her stick.  
  
"Ouch!" Shampoo said, rubbing the top of her head irritably.  
  
"Why is it ironical?" Ranma asked.  
  
Shampoo started to explain about the magic 'tell truth buns', but Cologne rapped her on top   
of the head again with her staff.  
  
"Ouch!" Shampoo said again.  
  
Somehow, that kept Shampoo quiet.  
  
Cologne continued. "Still, I think it's good for you. You haven't had serious practice like   
that in a long time. Were they all martial artists?"  
  
"Every one, great grandmother." Shampoo responded.  
  
"Hmm... I wonder why?" Cologne muttered, half to herself as she looked around.  
  
She caught the signboard for the school.  
"What!?" Cologne said, raising her voice.  
  
everyone present fixed on the matriarch of the amazon tribe. "What?" the assembled   
teens all asked.  
  
"The Bruce Lee Arts Martial Magnet school" Cologne said.  
  
a 5 story building, with handholds and ledges on the outside, each covered in cracks,   
laced heavily with open windows and discarded weapons and weighted clothing. Several   
students could be seen brawling with teachers or amongst themselves on the roof, the   
grounds, the trees on the grounds, or even the ledges and flagpoles that jutted out from   
the building.  
  
"Shampoo, I think it's time you got an education" Cologne said with a toothy grin.  
  
"Aiyah" was her only reply.  
  
Although they hadn't noticed, Nabiki was nearby, on her knees, tears streaming down   
her face. Whether she was crying for joy at the sheer possibility of profit, or crying for   
fear and loathing of being subjected to this hellhole of a school that would only be   
bearable for her sister and the fiancee network, no one knew.  
  
The blood curdling scream she emitted, however, told everyone what she thought about it.  
  
--------  
  
10:00 am  
  
--------  
In Japanese schools, the students stay in one classroom, and the teachers move around.   
Not so in the Bruce Lee Arts Martial Magnet school [called BLAM school affectionately   
by it's students.] So, in the movement between classes, it almost goes without saying what   
happened.  
But, just to be perfectly clear, Ryoga got lost.  
  
He had made it to his second orientation class with Akane's help. But he had lost track of   
her after the second. It seemed today was an orientation, and that tomorrow they would   
actually sign up for classes. So it was without great surprise that Ryoga found himself   
wandering around a street. Now where did they put that stupid clock tower he said,   
glancing up at the trees that blocked long distance sight.  
  
He tripped over a wrecked bicycle.  
  
Now that's odd... he said to himself.  
  
he stood up, and continued on his way, until he stepped in something mushy, and fell again.  
Some martial artist I am. he thought ruefully. I can't even walk around without tripping   
over everything in sight he said. With that, he examined the fallen plate of buns. They   
looked unharmed.  
Well, who knows how long I'll be lost. I don't have any food with me, either. he said,   
picking them up and wrapping them in a bandanna for later.  
  
Then he heard a groan.  
  
he spun and caught sight of a long haird girl hanging upside down in a tree. He couldn't   
see her face, but it seemed that she hadn't climbed up there herself.  
  
Nimbly leaping to the tree, Ryoga landed on the branch next to [unbeknownst to him] Ukyou.  
  
he poked her shoulder lightly. "Are you alright, miss?" he said.  
  
When she didn't respond, he picked her up and leaped to the ground.  
  
Laying her on her back, he finally noticed who it was.  
  
"Ukyou?! Come on, wake up" he said, jostling her. He checked her pulse, which was   
regular, if a little slow, and strong.  
  
With a heaving sob, she sprung to life before his eyes. She gasped for breath, and   
rolled over to one side.  
"Who's there" she said angrily.  
  
"Uh... It's me, Ryoga." Ryoga responded dumbly.  
  
"Oh. You. Figures I would be found by you." she said sadly. For the second time   
in as many days, the startling coincidence was lost on the participants.  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ryoga said angrily. "Look, if you don't want my   
help, I can just go."  
  
"And you'd be gone, alright. To Mars." Ukyou snapped. "You're already there in mind."  
  
Ryoga turned and started to walk away. Until he heard the sobbing.  
  
Ukyou felt a strong hand on her shoulder again, and then heard Hibiki Ryoga's voice.  
"What happened?" he asked.  
  
"Shampoo. I saw her, going to feed Ranma some magic something or other, and I   
got so mad, I attacked her." Ukyou said.  
  
"And she beat you up like this?" Ryoga asked.  
"I forced her to eat one of the things she had, and she got really mad. I was no   
match for her" Ukyou said, punctuating the end of the sentence with a sob.  
  
"I thought you two were pretty equal." Ryoga said, perplexed.  
  
"So had I. Now I have nothing." Ukyou said.  
  
"What do you mean?" Ryoga said.  
  
"Akane and Shampoo are both cuter than me, Shampoo's a better cook and a better   
fighter! What do I have to offer Ranma besides that I dress like a boy?"  
Ryoga didn't know what to say to that. Truth be known, he didn't really think of   
Ukyou much, or much of Ukyou, for that matter. They'd been nice to each other   
in the past, but they'd always wanted something from the other. But, as he strained   
his mind, they had gotten along pretty well after that whole island fiasco. She'd shown   
him how to make okonomiyaki. And then there was that whole... his mind encountered   
a block as he attempted to recall a few other incidents. He returned to the scene at hand.  
  
"Something to offer Ranma? Feh. He doesn't deserve the time of day." Ryoga snapped.  
  
"That's what you think, stupid. I just happen to love him, you know. I would think you   
would know all about that, Mr. I'm in love with Akane and am too shy to even say it" Ukyou   
replied coolly.  
  
"Hm." Ryoga grumbled. a moment of silence passed between them as they glared at each   
other.  
  
"So get something to offer him, then." Ryoga offered dumbly.  
  
"Like what, money? I don't have any." Ukyou said.  
  
"I don't know what. You could train until you were a better fighter than Shampoo.   
Practice your cooking. Dress nicer."  
  
"But then I wouldn't be me." Ukyou said.  
  
Ryoga had an answer for this one.He'd imagined Akane asking him this question, so   
he could seem wise and knowledgeable in front of her, but he was starting to think it   
would never come around that way. Besides, he could use it again, he supposed.   
"No one can take you away from you except yourself. If you want something, so   
long as you don't lie to yourself as you strive for it, it becomes you. You change,   
not discard yourself."  
  
Ukyou looked pensive. Not necessarily agreeing yet, she spoke. "Wow, Ryoga.   
That's pretty adult. How'd a guy like you come up with something like that?" she said.  
  
When you turn into a pig, you ponder who you are a lot Ryoga thought grimly.   
He favored her with a sneer. "What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"Oh... Nothing." the Chef quipped.  
  
"I guess I agree with you, Ryoga. Come on, help me up."  
  
"Why should I?" Ryoga asked.  
  
"You jackass, just help me up already!" Ukyou snarled.  
  
Ryoga helped her up. And, using him as a support, Ukyou led Ryoga back to the school.  
  
Ukyou's spatula ringing off a hard human head makes a distinctive noise, one never   
heard before in the streets of Bellevue, the suburb they were in.  
  
They were going to have to get used to it.   
  
Now would be a great time to start, it seems.  
---  
Nabiki fingered her backpack. Inside were the loot of the plunder she'd made last   
night with Rei. At first, it had seemed stupid to her. Her, Nabiki Tendo, of all people,   
digging up cultural artifacts for fun. She'd only gone along with it... well, she truthfully   
hadn't known why she had.  
  
But it _had_ been fun.  
  
_lots_ of fun.  
  
As a matter of fact, Nabiki noted ruefully that it had probably been the most fun thing   
she'd done in years. Festivals, birthdays- they paled in comparison. There were   
definately more important incidents in her life, but this was the most fun.  
  
But that was it. She was hooked. Rei's wacky adventure had her hooked.   
  
She raised her hand, and asked to be excused to the bathroom. Recieving a   
key from the teacher, she headed down the hallway to the bathroom.  
  
"So, what took you so long?" asked Rei as soon as she turned inside the bathroom.  
  
"Rei? What are you doing here?" Nabiki asked.  
  
"What do you think? I go here. Anyways, like the hat?" she asked, showing off a hat   
from the raid last night. The simple wide brimmed, brown hat simply shouted adventurer.   
Perhaps because it looked like Indiana Jones' hat. Her blue hair hung neatly outside the   
hat to the back.  
  
"Ooh, a real adventurer." Nabiki answered, tipping the front of the hat with her tired arms.   
  
Rei shot her a nasty look.  
  
"No, seriously, I like it." Nabiki said.   
  
"Anyways, we gotta get some source material. Rent some Indiana Jones movies tonight,   
or get your host mom to do it. I gotta get some ideas."  
  
"Like what kind of ideas?" Nabiki asked.  
  
"I don't know, that's why I want source material!" Rei answered. "Now go on, get back   
to class before someone else comes along."  
  
"All right. When are you coming over?" Nabiki asked. "And do you know where I live?"   
Nabiki added.  
  
"Leave your window open, and yes." Rei answered.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Speed-Chan's Notes  
  
Whew. That was a lot of work for me- 37 pages of work, before this edition. I imagine  
It's probably blossomed to almost 45 pages when you include Makoto's section and the  
reformatting into text. Poor Makoto. He's too busy with school.  
Of course, big thanks go out to my Prereading team- First Nuki_Mouse, without whose  
prolific C&C this fic would probably not have been half the fic it managed to be.   
Orlean, whose witty remarks on the fic were very telling as to where I should tighten up some  
sections of the fic. His sharp tongue improved the fic a lot, and I've even included some of  
his wittier remarks- "And terrible inflight service"  
HJ40@sjnma.com, whose words of encouragement after the first, half as long, draft was  
released let me know that it did have an audience.  
Mike Overton, who told me to cut a few bits that needed cutting.  
  
Dedicated to the deceased FFML.  
  
Next chapter of "The Usual Delinquents"  
  
Nabiki: "That belongs in a museum!"  
Akane: "Sure I'm engaged. Practically everyone I know is. Why?"  
Kuno: "Ah, my beloved pigtailed girl!... I will buy all of them! No, Nabiki, you many not have any."  
Ukyou: "All I'm saying, Ranma, is that I've seen bigger."  
Mousse: "What you're saying is that in order to be manly, I have to adventure?"  
Shampoo: "Shampoo's boyfriend name.... is... Mousse!"  
Ranma: "Whatta ya mean, Boy Scouts?"  
Ryoga: "Yeah, what do you mean, Boy scouts?"  
Kodachi: "Ohohohohoho!"  
Unknown girl's voice: "Anything goes martial arts shop class?"  
  
Until next time (being roughly defined as a month or so away)  
Speed@olypen.com  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. A few cards Short of a Full Deck

Ranma 1/2 belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.  
  
Kuno's limousine pulled up to the home- it was large, much larger than the homes of the other exchange families.  
  
To Kuno, It was a dump.  
And here he'd heard that Americans had big houses!  
  
With a labored sigh, the great samurai warrior grabbed the handle of his peasantish luggage carrier, which held but a small fraction of his essential needs and belongings up the pathway to the front door, where the noble Samurai rung the doorbell in a heroic and noble fashion.  
  
The doorbell was answered by a normal, but somewhat fair to look on woman in her middle ages, smiling pleasantly.  
"Why hello, you must be Tatewaki. We were expecting you yesterday."  
Tatewaki stifled an exasperated sigh.  
"Yes, well I was detained looking after some of the peculiar details of my voyage."  
Those fools at the airport making such a fuss about everything, and the police!  
Kuno thought.  
She showed him inside, where he contained his abhorrent reaction to the short ceilings-  
Only 10 feet high, truly not enough for a warrior- and narrow hallways with clumsy and thick doors and graceless architecture. Tatewaki could barely restrain a cry of anguish at the hovel-like dwelling that was his.  
"Pretty nice, eh?" Asked his hostess.  
"AAAAAAHHH!!!!" Tatewaki screamed.  
"This simply will not do! Your architecture is cramped and graceless, your hallways unrefined, your decoration simply unacceptably lowborn, the floors are bare wood and..  
and...  
Tatewaki had spared a glance towards the refrigerator, where a young woman a bit younger than Tatewaki made her way to the refrigerator and removed an american's peasant refreshement, a Coke, from the refrigerator.  
Tatewaki's bokken dropped from his hand- the woman was a vision of loveliness he was unused to. Her long blonde hair hung behind her shoulders as she looked at him during his stunted outburst, her green eyes nearly glowing from their beautiful frame- her cheekbones were high and angular, her nose buttonish, her chin dainty, her lips pouted just so.  
  
Tatewaki's heart stopped as the bokken clattered to the floor.  
  
The woman, his hostess, stared at him in somewhat of an expression of horror.  
Quickly, Tatewaki, resolve this issue in a manner becoming your noble Samurai Heritage, with Diplomacy, Charisma and characteristic aplomb!  
  
"That is, of course, after the traditional Japanese custom. I happen to find it very charming. Where do I sleep?"  
  
His hostess seemed pleased by his sudden return to the world of the civilized. The Longhaired Girl, whose eyes had remained on Tatewaki this whole time, shrugged and walked off, the snapping sound of the opening refreshment the only indicator of her proximity as she rounded a corner, out of sight.  
Tatewaki's heart resumed beating normally.  
"You sleep upstairs, next to Elizabeth's room."  
  
Much Contemplation needs contemplating before the night is out... Thought Tatewaki.  
---  
  
Rei slipped through the window to Nabiki's room, surprising the short haired girl.  
"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that, you know." Nabiki said with a glare.  
"But it's so much fun!" Rei countered. "Got the movies?"  
"Sure. But these are movies, you know. They don't have much to do with reality."  
"Sure they do. You just have to make them."  
"There really isn't much adventure unless it happens to you- you can't happen to it. Look at my sister, for crying out loud. Anytime she tries to do anything exciting, all she gets is a face-full of that halfwit Saotome."  
  
"mmm... face-full of Saotome...."  
"What the hell are you thinking?" Nabiki asked incredulously. "You couldn't possibly be interested in someone so shallow-witted?"  
  
"Nope. Not at all. "  
"All he's good for is blackmailing."  
"And looking at." Rei countered.  
"Hmph." Nabiki replied.  
"Look, save your distaste for him. Blackmail him all you want. I just wanna see him without a shirt occasionally."  
"I will blackmail him, that you can be sure of."  
"I already was."  
"He has no right to treat my sister that way."  
"Do you care about that that much?"  
"Yes I do!"  
"Okay." Rei said, letting the tender subject drop.  
The two settled in in front of the television, absorbing the sights and sounds of Indiana Jones' first movie.  
  
"Why does it always have to be snakes?" Asked Indiana from the screen.  
  
"It's good that we don't have a weakness like that, or fear of cats or something keeping us in danger all the time." Nabiki said.  
"You sound so sure." Rei said.  
"The only thing that scares me is Akane's cooking."  
Rei laughed. "So I've gathered."  
Nabiki smiled. "So I'll be both enterprising businesswoman..."  
  
Rei interrupted "You mean blackmail queen"  
"..and breathtaking adventurer" Nabiki finished, ignoring the other girl's unwelcome interjection.  
"ooh, Breathtaking no less!"  
Nabiki shot Rei a glare.  
"look, miss smarty pants. You're the one who wants to be the big adventurer. Adventurers are always good looking, right?"  
"Point taken. We'll need to keep up our exercises, and take some of those martial arts."  
Nabiki snorted.  
"What?" Rei asked.  
"Martial arts. That's not adventure, that's insanity."  
"Whatever. 6 of one, Half a dozen of the other."  
"Sure. You say that until some freak flies by in an airship and snags your sister with a fishing pole just because he wants to marry her to complete a scroll of martial arts married people's pickle making."  
"That sounds fun. I don't see why you're..." Rei stopped, and then grew a huge smile on her face, pointing at the short haired girl. "You're jealous!! You want to be snagged by a fishing pole and carried off somewhere!"  
"That's a baseless accusation." Nabiki replied.  
"When it comes to you, my dear, nothing I say is baseless."  
"How is that? You hardly know me." Nabiki said. "Maybe I should show you what I'm normally like."  
"Nah. I just think I understand you pretty well. Besides, you really don't want to blackmail me."  
"Is that so?" Nabiki said with a grin.  
"Really."  
"Fine then. Okay, so we were talking about skills needed for adventuring."  
"Right. I say we need martial arts."  
"Once again, I wonder why."  
"Look, I think you're just scared of beginning now, what with your little sister being so good a martial artist already. You don't want to seem awkward, because of this whole 'Queen lord Nabiki' thing you have set up, but here's perfect. Back at home, you couldn't have avoided Akane's stares, or Ranma's, or whatever, but here, you can do it yourself. You can master the martial arts, and when you go home, to everyone else it will seem like all of a sudden you grew some skill."  
"But I..."  
"No buts. You're gonna master it. I mean, come on. What school are you going to?"  
"The Bruce Lee Martial Arts magnet school."  
"That's what I'm talkin' about."  
" That principal is going to pay for this."  
"What, for giving you the chance of a lifetime?"  
"I have not yet determined that this is the chance of a lifetime" Nabiki replied hotly.  
"So what else do we need? I think we need a just cause."  
"Like what?"  
"I dunno, science, or a museum or something."  
"What do you mean by that?"  
"We should be adventuring to advance science, or get back artifacts for a museum. Otherwise we're just looters."  
"Like that time capsule?"  
"Yeah. That was a warm-up. We'll make up for it later."  
"Like How?"  
"Well, I'll figure something out. I'll let you know tomorrow."   
The two girls finished the movie in silence, and Rei slipped out the window, leaving Nabiki to her thoughts.  
  
The Next Morning:  
Snorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....hk.....shooooooooooooo... came the sound.  
Ryoga pulled the pillow tightly over his head. He'd once had a wild elephant interrupt his sleep while he was camping outside Tokyo, but this was much louder than that.  
  
Snorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....hk.....shooooooooooooo... came the sound.  
Ryoga glanced at the alarm clock- 7:09. In 6 minutes, that alarm would go off, and he would get no more sleep. Ryoga was as apt a guy to go without sleep as anyone else, but what really irked him was what was keeping him awake.  
  
Snorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....hk.....shooooooooooooo... went Saotome Ranma.  
  
"Grrrrrr.... That's it! Ranma, prepare to die!" Ryoga said angrily, hefting a nice world atlas in one hand, which he unceremoniously wung right at the sleeping boy's head.  
  
Snorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..Thwap Hurk? Uh? Wha?.... came the sound.  
Ranma sat up in bed as Ryoga raised another implement of circadian disruption.  
"Aw, Whadja do that for?" Ranma asked.  
"Shut up and let me sleep, Ranma!" Ryoga growled. "It's bad enough having to stay here with /you/, of all people, but not letting me sleep is simply unforgiveable!  
  
Ranma rolled his eyes. "Whatever, P-Chan. I'm going back to bed."  
"No you're not. You're going to keep me awake!"  
  
"Like I care?" Ranma retorted.  
Ryoga hucked the annotated travels of Alexander the Great right for Ranma's head. Ranma, despite his sleep groggy position, was plenty awake to catch the book.  
"Eat this, Porky!" Ranma said, flinging the book with all the force he could muster. "And this!" he said, flinging the atlas with his other hand.  
  
Ryoga caught both books, threw them back, and added a few more books. Ranma, caught those books, threw them back, and added a few action figures.  
  
Gosunkugi woke up, checked his alarm. Swinging his legs out of bed, he put on his bunny slippers and made his way out of the room. The barrage of flying objects, which now included every object in the room that was in reach of Ranma or Ryoga's bed, parted around him effortlessly as the two boys sought to hurt each other with the things and not wanting to waste a shot on Gosunkugi. They were, after all, Martial Artists.  
  
Gosunkugi stepped into the shower just as the alarm went off.  
  
"You made me miss my sleep, Ryoga!"  
"Say what?" replied the lost boy.  
"I said you made me miss my sleep!" Ranma said angrily.  
"That's not what I meant. What I meant was you made me miss MY sleep!" Ryoga countered.  
  
Gosunkugi finished his shower, and padded his way downstairs to the kitchen.  
"Good Morning, Hikaru" came Mrs. Yoshikawa's sing-song call.  
"Good Morning Mrs. Yoshikawa."  
"Please, Hikaru, call me Sylvie." The older woman replied.  
The house shook suddenly and violently.  
"Okay... Sylvie..."  
"There, that's better. In America, it's unbearably formal to refer to someone as Mister or Mrs. if you know them. Or even rude, sometimes."  
"Really?"  
"Yes. Now, Hikaru, how about some breakfast?"  
"That'd be great!" Gosunkugi replied.  
The house shook under another titanic impact.  
"How about some pancakes, eggs, bacon and orange juice?" Sylvie said.  
  
43 minutes later...  
  
"Come on, Ryoga, we're going to be late!"  
"This is all your fault, Ranma!"  
"Whatever, pig boy, just hurry up!" Ranma countered. Stupid Ryoga... keeping me up like that and making me late for my first day of class.   
  
Stupid Ranma... Keeping me up like that and making me late for my first day of class.   
Thought the lost boy as they rushed down the street at top speed. It was a straight shot from the Yoshikawa home, but it was still a few blocks, and it was going to be tight to see if they could make it on time...  
  
They rushed onto the lot, only to be confronted by a large group of students, wearing unusual hats.  
"Stop right there!" Came the loud call in English.  
"Come on, buddy, we're going to be late!" Ranma said.  
"Are those... hair nets?" Ryoga asked.  
Ranma looked at the 12 student's "hats". They did indeed appear to be hairnets. They were silvery, which was unusual, but Ranma still knew a hair net when he saw one. His father's false vanity had caused him a number of unfortunate encounters with them...  
"They're our protection. You see, we are ready for your kind!" said the leader, a tall, beefy boy in a T-shirt that said "Nevermore".  
Ranma turned to Ryoga. "Our Kind?"  
Ryoga turned to them. "How dare you group me with him!"  
"Oh, you expect us to think it's just a coincidence that you should show up on the same day as the Furinkan students, and be so obviously a martial artist? Hah!"  
"But... it is just a coincidence..." began the two teens.  
"What is going on here?" Came a clear voice. The Nerimans turn to see Akane stroll up and join them.  
"We were about to..."  
"Yeah, what's going on?" came the call of the longhaired okonomiyaki chef.  
"Ahem. As I was saying, we are about to show you what will happen if you do not immediately cease your evil haircutting ways! En Guarde!"  
  
"Haircutting wha?" Ranma said, suddenly dodging a flung hair net. The coiffure coffin flew across the lot, slicing a tree branch in its path into little cubes, which clattered to the ground quietly.  
"What makes you think we'd want to do that?" Akane asked, barely avoiding a steel hair net with metal weights at the end- the net wrapped around a light pole like a bola.  
"We know all about your evil headmaster. We know you're here to try and punish our principal for their history together by making his school a laughingstock. Well, we'll show you. Our finest members are in Japan right now, making short work of your evil leader. And we're here to stop you, his elite task force, from taking the same advantage of us here!" the boy finished. "Sara, I could use a glass of water."  
A girl dressed like a ninja appeared out of a puff of smoke, glass of water held out for him.  
He took it and drank it.  
"There, that's much better. My throat was getting dry. Now, prepare yourself!"  
"Whoa whoa, whoa. History together?"  
"Quit playing dumb. I'm sure you all know...  
flashback  
A muscular young man, back towards the viewer, sits on a park bench next to a woman who is turned to face him.  
'I can't believe it." He says in a thick Scottish drawl, his deep voice causing a nearby woman to lean heavily on her boyfriend for support.  
"I'm sorry, James, but I love him! I can't see you anymore."  
"What can you possibly see in him?"  
"He's kind, and loving, and... well, he's just wonderful."  
"But I love you, don't you see?"  
The woman nearby totally collapsed.  
"He has a pineapple tree growing from his head! Doesn't that deter you in the slightest?"  
she shook her head. "no. I'm sorry, James. Can we still be friends?"  
End flashback  
"But that wasn't enough for your evil headmaster. Not only did he steal our beloved principal's one true love, but from then on, he was still driven to extremes of jealousy by the magic they'd had before! His torture knew no bounds!"  
  
Begin flashback  
"Mr. Kuno, prepare to defend yourself."  
"Aloha, Wahine. Wa' you be talkin' bout?"  
"Mr. Kuno, I am challenging you for the hand of the beautiful..."  
The thick Scottish drawl choked up into a sob.  
"This duel will be to the death." He finished, returning to his composure.  
"No, keiki. Tha' be Wrong."  
"Prepare yourself!" the man called out, rushing with a saber. The two leaped into the air, and landed apart by ten feet, facing away from each other. The sun, setting behind them, silhouetted them in an orange glow.  
"Damn... you... Mr. Kuno..." said the man on the right, as he fell to the ground, head shorn completely bare.  
The next day:  
"Prepare yourself, Mr. Kuno!"  
Swish, swipe  
clump  
End flashback  
"And so it would go on, and on, your vicious headmaster never ceasing his attempts to shave our beloved principal's head completely bald. We, the members of the BLAM school principal's list, have sworn to protect him and his beloved school from the threat presented by the vicious headmaster Kuno, whose obsession with haircutting knows no bounds."  
  
Ryoga looked questioningly at Ranma. Ranma nodded to Ryoga. "It sounds true..." The pigtailed boy supplied.  
"So, when this exchange program was initiated between the two schools, we naturally assumed your fiendish principal would use this opportunity to ridicule our teacher yet again. So we taught ourselves to use these weapons." He said, twirling a steel hair net for emphasis- "So that we could stop you from shaving our heads and completing your headmaster's fiendish task of ridicule. Now, Are you prepared?"  
"I'm always prepared." Ranma said.   
Akane looked the boy in the eye. "That's by far the stupidest thing I've ever heard."  
"I will listen to no more of your deceptions! Prepare yourself already!"  
"I am already!" Ranma replied impatiently. The other Nerimans nodded in agreement.  
"Well, prepare yourself more. You'll need it." He continued.  
"What are we supposed to be, Boy Scouts?" Ryoga quipped.  
"Stop your yammering! Prepare to be defeated!" called out Sara, who disappeared into a puff of smoke. The leader and his 10 other men charged.  
Ranma dodged under the leader's first attack, and started a flurry of punches to his midsection. The boy rolled around Ranma's blows, reducing the damage and bringing him out of reach just as...  
Another boy flung down with a hair net for Ranma's face whilst the leader switched with the new boy and moved on to Ryoga, who was caught just as much by surprise by Ranma by this sudden tactic.  
Ryoga blocked the punch thrown by the leader, and guy kicked him into Ranma, who barely rolled him off of himself in time to defend himself against the second man, whom Ranma easily struck in the nose. Ranma punched two more in the face, and turned to see that Akane and Ukyou weren't faring much better, practically fighting each other as well as the opponents, although not intentionally.  
With a puff of smoke, the ninja girl appeared behind Ranma, giant steel hair net in hand, poised to bring it down and capture Ranma.   
Ryoga considered telling Ranma, but instead just focused on his task at hand.  
  
Ranma rolled between the ninja's legs at the last possible second, avoiding the steel net and certain defeat with an flair that only comes from being Saotome Ranma. He favored the girl with a smug look as she gathered up her giant net.  
"I'm surprised." Sara began.  
"What, that I'm so much better than you?" Ranma said.  
"Hah. No. That a team trained by the evil headmaster shows as little teamwork and team spirit as you all do." Sara said.  
"I told you, we're not a team!" Ryoga yelled from behind her.  
"Yeah, like he said!" Ranma agreed.  
"Don't you think we're past this little ruse? Can't you just admit who you are and accept defeat gracefully?" She said, punctuating her sentence with a flung net. Ranma gracefully leaped over the net to land on top of her head, perched like a bird.  
"Look, I don't hit girls, but I ain't gonna let you guys just beat me up like that."  
"Get.... Off...." Sara began, swiping at Ranma, who hopped over her blows just to land back on her head again and again. She staggered under his weight, applied repeatedly but without force.  
"Ranma, stop flirting with that girl and help your Fiancee!" Ukyou said, pissed tone and facial expression focused all on Saotome Ranma as she ducked under a net and spatulated a net wielder into the ground.  
  
Ranma, however, was focused on a battle aura in the crowd.  
"Ranma... how dare you..." Akane began.  
"Akane, it's not what it looks like."  
"How could it not be?" Asked Sara from underneath Ranma. After all, it looked like Ranma was sitting on her head pretty much was an objective fact.  
"Cheating on Akane like that... In front of her no less... Have you no shame, Saotome?" Ryoga added in.  
Ranma waved his arms in a gesture of warding. "No, no, it's not like that."  
"Then tell me what it is like, huh?" Asked Sara.  
"Uhhh..." Ranma began, but a throwing spatula, a flying brick and a red bamboo umbrella cut him off.  
As Ranma fell off of Sara's head, she turned to the leader, staggered on the ground.  
"You know, I'm starting to believe them." She said.  
"Me too." Replied the leader. "All right, men, you're done now. Let them go."  
"Honestly, just attacking people like that. They should be ashamed of themselves." Akane said.  
"I'll say, Sugar. They really made a mess out of things here, and all for what? To defeat a nonexistent group of rogue haircutters?"  
Ranma sat up from his fallen position, the brick having left it's mark as it slid away from the square red mark on his face. He nonchalantly plucked the throwing spatula from his skull.  
"Those guys need a lesson... Oh crap. We're late! Come on, guys!"  
  
  
Ranma and crew ran up to join a big line in front of the school- the doors hadn't opened yet, and Ranma sure didn't know why.  
"Heya, Ucchan. Why ain't the doors opened yet?"  
Ukyou turned to look at Ranma. "Why would I know?"  
Switching to English, she tapped the shoulder of the boy in front of her.  
"Excusa me, why door is no open?" Ukyou asked.  
The boy smiled back. "Today is placement."  
Ukyou smiled back, turned to Ranma and said simply in Japanese- "Today is 'placement'"  
Ranma gave Ukyou a wry look. "What the heck is that supposed to mean?"  
The two large wooden doors moved, the Chinese dragons inlaid seeming to groan in protest as the hinges creaked under  
The tremendous weight of the ornate door opening.  
Ranma slowly made his way up the line until he reached an oaken desk. A pretty lady with light hair smiled at him and pointed him to a gym locker on Ranma's left.   
"Uh.. thanks." Ranma said suavely. As he strolled off, she reached out and grabbed his hand.  
"Eh?" Ranma wondered.  
The woman placed a Gi, wrapped in a clear poly bag, into his hand.  
---  
Ranma walked out onto the floor of the gymnasium. The whole floor was covered in a thin mat, to prevent harm from falls, Ranma guessed.  
All around the makeshift dojo were pairs of students, fighting it out, while teachers or faculty watched.  
Ranma turned his head back to the mat that corresponded with his little number tag- 43- and looked across the mat.  
  
Ranma rarely smiled when he looked at Ryoga Hibiki, but today, when his presence would allow Ranma to show off for real,  
He was more than happy to see him.  
  
"Looks like fate, eh Ranma?" Ryoga said with a vicious grin.  
  
"Looks like bacon sandwich day at the cafeteria, more like it."  
  
"Oh no. You're not going to get the best of me today, Ranma."  
  
"You're right. That takes Lettuce, Tomato and a toasted piece of bread."  
  
"That's IT!!! Prepare to die, Saotome!"  
  
The magnet school supervisor just barely reached the edge of the mat as the two combatants met in the air, 10 feet above.  
  
How do you like this, Ranma?" Ryoga cried as he launched a series of heavy fist blows towards Ranma's upper torso.  
Ranma simply grinned as he threw his much faster hands out, deflecting each and every blow harmlessly past him,  
while simultaneously landing three kicks against the lost boy's midsection.  
  
The two fell from the air to the ground about 2 meters apart, and resumed their posturing.  
  
the boys made their battle- this time, they closed in on the ground. Ryoga  
again launched out with a series of punches and a few kicks against Ranma's upper body, but the pigtailed boy weaved between and deflected each one, all the while landing dozens of blows all over the lost boy's body.  
  
The observer continued to scribble.  
Competitor A has apparently undergone a very rigorous speed enhancing training- looking at him is reminiscent of the late   
Master himself. However, Competitor B, Ryoga Hibiki, has unnatural endurance. Even though competitor A has already clearly  
won by points, competitor b looks completely unharmed at three minutes into the fight, having received countless blows.  
  
Ranma ducked under a punch Ryoga extended too far. With a roll, he placed himself behind the lost boy, where he proceeded, from a handstand, to kick Ryoga in the back of the head with a savage combination. Right leg, left leg, right leg, finally   
lifting the lost boy into the air. Ryoga crashed onto the ground with his hands in front of him, but Ryoga heaved himself onto his feet with his arm, rising to meet Ranma's challenge once again.  
  
"Curse you Ranma! Stand there and fight like a man!"  
"What would a pig like you know about it?" Replied the pigtailed martial artist with a gleeful grin. He was on a roll.  
  
The two clashed one more time, with results not entirely unpredictable- Ryoga landed a single punch, nigh doubling Ranma over, right before the pigtailed boy fired of a chestnut fist into his solar plexus. Both boys hunched over and backed  
off, preparing for the next clash...  
  
But they were prevented.  
  
"Okay boys, that's enough. Good Show, Ranma, you won. Ryoga, you did very well, and should be proud of yourself."  
Ryoga grimaced. He was obviously not proud of himself.  
  
The man scribbled out a couple of notes, and then called the boys over, where he passed them each a slip of paper.  
"You boys are very good." The man began. "You in particular, Ranma, are quite a martial artist."   
Ryoga snorted.  
"You have exceptional speed, reflexes and jumping ability. It says here that you're a student of a family school, Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu? Are you sure you've never taken Jeet Kune Do?"  
Ranma shrugged.. "Nah. I was taught by my pop. Maybe the old freak knew whatever it's called..."  
Ranma was cut off by a slap.  
"What the hell was that for?" Ranma asked the angry teacher.  
"Jeet Kune Do. It's that master's martial art. Here I pay you a compliment, and you disrespect the master's school and our founder."  
  
Ranma looked sheepish. "Jeez, I'm sorry."  
"There. That's better. Now you, young man, I assume you've heard of Jeet Kune Do?"  
Ryoga nodded.  
"But you don't practice it."  
"I could never stick around for lessons..."  
  
"He couldn't find his way to a dojo twice to take it." Ranma interjected.  
whap!  
"So, you studied a few Okinawan and Korean styles, I take it? Perhaps Tang Su? Tae Kwon Do, or perhaps Hwarang Do?" the teacher said to Ryoga, who was dislodging his elbow from the top of Ranma's skull.   
"It's really amazing that you could tell that much just by watching me fight with Ranma." Ryoga said respectfully, rubbing his elbow.  
"I'm not a teacher at a martial arts magnet school named for the greatest martial artist for nothing!" replied the older man, punctuating it with a maniacal cackle. "Hahahahahah!"  
  
Ranma looked at his little slip of paper as the two silently walked away from the cackling madman.  
"Ranma Saotome- 6th period- Kyokushinkai Karate, room 707"  
He turned to the lost boy. "What's yours say?"  
Ryoga rolled his eyes upwards, then drolly responded. "Extended JKD& Jun Fan, room #1"  
Ranma looked at the observer just as he began to leave.  
"What's a JKD?"  
The observer's hand lashed out and slapped Ranma across the face.  
"Jeet Kune Do. Bruce Lee's Martial art."  
Ranma clutched his red cheek. He hadn't been expecting that at all- the man wasn't fast enough to have slapped him if  
It hadn't been completely out of the blue... And Ranma felt kind of bad about not knowing something so basic.  
Ryoga chuckled just enough for Ranma to hear, so the pigtailed boy turned around.   
"What's that? You want to fight, bacon breath?"  
"Anytime, Ranma."  
---  
Nabiki made her way up to the mat, nervously expecting a first caliber beating. She sure hadn't known this would be part  
of the trip. She was raised at a dojo, so she knew how to defend herself if she ever had to walk home at night alone-  
Her father may not be the martial artist he used to be, but he could certainly teach her that- but Nabiki wasn't going to  
kid herself or anyone else. She would assuredly be the weakest fighter in the entire school.  
She glanced around, and saw Gosunkugi futilely attempting to ward off another student, who punched him straight to the  
ground and looked sadly at his moderator.  
  
Nabiki gulped. "Well, at least I'm not the most pathetic, right?" The short haired girl said dryly to herself.  
---  
A few minutes later, Nabiki feebly picked up her aching body from the mat of the dojo. She'd landed a single strike on the tall, blond girl who had moved like a bundle of snakes, easily writhing around Nabiki's feeble attempt to deliver harm, landing vicious, stinging blows across Nabiki's body that caused her to lose control of herself long before she actually fell to the ground. She hobbled over and received her slip from her mediator- "Remedial Wing Chun, room #2, 6th period" said the scribbled note in sloppy handwriting. Nabiki could barely read it.  
  
She hobbled off the gym floor and into the locker rooms. Stripping off her sweaty gi, she slipped quietly into the showers and rinsed herself in a warm stream of water. The cascading fluid helped ease the ache of her body, which she began to  
examine for forming bruises.  
Her ears filled with the sound of rushing water, and girl's voices- chittering about boys and classes and television-  
Nabiki's keen extortionist mind catalogued a few names and tidbits as she washed slowly, rubbing her sore legs and arms-  
until she was the last girl in the showers, enjoying her moment of peace.  
Finally finished, she reached up and turned off the spray of water. The last drops cascaded onto the short haired girl, as she turned to go to her locker.  
  
As Nabiki turned her view was suddenly filled by an all too familiar face.  
"Boo."  
Nabiki jumped nigh 5 feet in the air. Actually, an objective observer would have called it about 5 inches, but it felt like leaping a tall building in a single bound to Nabiki.  
  
"What the hell are you doing here?" Nabiki asked, flustered and angry.  
"Getting the shit kicked out of me, like you." Rei responded.  
Nabiki examined Rei's body- she sported a few welts- nothing like Nabiki, but bruised.  
"How'd you do?"  
"I fought a tough girl- I couldn't win, but I think I can get this martial arts stuff down. You look like you got handled."  
"I don't keep up on my martial arts any more than I hear in my proximity to madness- but if she didn't practice something  
called snake style, they obviously missed the appropriate name of their school."  
"Nah. I saw your fight. That was Snake Style Kung Fu."  
"Really?" Nabiki asked.  
"Really. I asked." replied the other short haired girl. "Say, what class have you got?"  
"Remedial Wing Chun, 6th period, room 2."  
"Too bad. I've got 4th period."  
Nabiki started to walk to her locker, facing Rei as she walked.  
"I guess I'm going to get involved in the crazy life that envelops my sister. I can't think of anything worse." Nabiki said  
with a sigh. "Pretty soon, I'll be getting kidnapped, involved in foreign plots, and subject to mental illness that everyone can see but myself." she finished.  
Rei only smiled.  
-  
  
Nabiki pulled herself to a stop in front of a water fountain , her aching body demanding that she rest beside it's cool waters.   
"Come on, don't wuss out like this. You need to show some backbone." Rei said, eyeing the sitting Tendo girl, eager to continue their walk home.  
"I said I'm sitting down."  
"Now, how are you going to be a great adventurer if all you want to do is sit around and nurse your bruises?" Rei accused.  
"Simply. I'll just have to be a more sedate adventurer than you." Nabiki said.  
"Yes. I would like some crumpets and the scepter of Rah-jamud, please" Rei said in a mocking tone.  
"Be quiet before I do something you regret." Nabiki stated simply.  
"You'd regret it just as much." Rei said, unimpressed by Nabiki's threat.  
"We'll just have to see about that."  
"Fine, whatever. You done resting?"  
"Nope. It's nice here. I think I'll stay a while."  
"Take a picture, it'll last longer."  
"I think I will, thanks." Nabiki said, producing a camera from her back pocket.  
"I was just kidding. Let's go, Nabiki." Rei said quickly.  
Nabiki stood up, hands on hips.  
"not before I get my picture." She said, placing the camera on the bench, tilted upwards slightly on a wire frame adjustable tripod.  
Rei looked about wildly. "Hey, we're kinda near that park. Someone might recognize us."  
Nabiki looked at Rei strangely. "No one saw us. You were the one that told me that. Come on, smile for the camera!"  
Nabiki reached out and grabbed Rei, and pulled her into the camera's focus as the blinking lights began, indicating the coming flash.  
Rei smiled nervously as the flash engulfed the two girls.  
"Come on, I'm ready to go now." Nabiki said, pulling Rei's hand as Nabiki headed home.  
  
Nabiki walked home along the sidewalk, grateful for once in her life for the slow pace people were setting in front of her to keep Rei from stomping around at top speed.  
They were from the school, and Nabiki recognized one of the two girl's voices from the shower room.  
"So, you're going to meet him at the fountain this afternoon? That's awfully crowded." Said one girl.  
"I just can't stay away. I really can't bear to have Van find out, but..." said the voice Nabiki recognized.  
"Allen's just too much man, eh?" said the second girl, elbowing her friend in the side.  
"Stop it. What if someone hears us?"  
What if indeed... Nabiki thought.  
---  
Ukyou walked home in a daze. She'd barely defeated her opponent in the placement trial- they had left her bereft of a single spatula. Ukyou hardly knew a thing that didn't use an okonomiyaki spatula, so she'd been forced to improvise and rely heavily on her superior physical condition- which had been barely enough to defeat the girl. Ukyou resolved to work around this loophole in her training- it simply wouldn't do for Ranma to have a wife that couldn't defend herself with just her fists.  
Walking into the Morris home, Ukyou called out the traditional "Tadaima" call.  
"Oh, Ukyou! You're back!" Jackie said, her head peering from around a corner.  
"Yes ma'm. I go backyard, okay?" Ukyou said in her poor English.  
"Sure. It's out that back sliding door." Jackie said.  
Ukyou walked out back and dropped her spatula on the ground.  
Peering at her reflection in the shiny surface, Ukyou contemplated herself.  
Suddenly looking up from it, she dropped into a form, and began advancing around the yard, replacing the small spatula stabs from her movements with fists, trying to teach herself a barehand technique. She focused on the parts of her routine that were supposed to allow her the time to retrieve a spatula were she suddenly attacked without one at her side... she snickered at the absurdity of that thought.  
Moving gracefully into parts of her routine that were nearly as ingrained in her as breathing, she allowed herself the luxury of a few stray thoughts.   
Who am I? she wondered.  
A girl. In love.  
Some Girl. Ukyou mused.  
Well, you do it better than Akane.  
Ukyou harrumphed to herself, continuing around the yard, light steps followed by forceless punches meant to fit with women's martial arts. She stopped her family form, and tried out her new Shaolin style form. The form wasn't complete yet, but Ukyou knew she could get it down pat, and maybe move on to the next subset by tomorrow.  
The form was short, involving standing on one leg and moving your arms in a pattern that Ukyou assumed was for blocking. This was a Crane form subset, and Ukyou thought it would work well with her long legs. Not to mention, Crane style's long sweeping strikes would allow her to strike out with her limbs, as well as her spatula, should she ever try to mix the two styles.  
  
"You want a partner?" came the voice. Akane... thought Ukyou.  
"Sure, why not." Ukyou said, turning to face the short haired girl.  
Akane walked over to face the Okonomiyaki chef with a smile.   
She might be competition, but she's not so bad. Ukyou thought, returning Akane's smile.  
"You aren't going to try and sabotage me like last time, are you?" Akane asked. Her face was a mask of serious accusation, but her eyes gave it away- those big brown eyes were smiling wide.  
The eyes cause Ukyou to frown just a little. Those brown eyes captivated hearts in a way that Ukyou was more than a little jealous of. She could hardly know an extranational dictator or martial artist for a day before he decided that she'd make an ideal wife.  
Ukyou couldn't understand it. Ukyou herself was a violent, mannish girl who had picked up very few of the graces normally associated with womanhood, but she still figured she had it figured out better than Akane, who nonetheless captured the hearts of everyone around. The only people she knew that seemed immune were Konatsu and Mousse- but then again, they were even more mentally ill than the average person she knew- those being Ranma, Ryoga, Kuno, Daisuke and Hiroshi.  
"Earth to Ukyou!" Akane called, shaking Ukyou out of her reverie.  
"Oh, yeah. Sorry, Akane. What do you want to start with?"  
"Just a little sparring. We can see what we need to work on after a little of that, don't you think?" Akane queried.  
"Sounds great."  
"Don't go easy on me." Akane warned.  
How could I not and still call it sparring? Ukyou asked herself mentally.  
Akane charged, and Ukyou started a routine defensive maneuver. It worked just as planned, although Akane pressed harder and faster than Ukyou would have expected.  
Am.. I slipping? Ukyou asked herself as the short haired girl blocked one of Ukyou's strikes with a punch to the forearm. It missed straight connection, and Ukyou's blow got through, but Akane's force left it's mark.  
Or... is Akane trying harder than usual... Ukyou wondered.  
Akane's next series interrupted any chance for deep thought on Ukyou's part, pressing Ukyou back slightly with a vicious triple combination that Ukyou had no doubt had felled many of the girl's misguided suitors in the past.  
or is it... both? Ukyou wondered as the she pushed Akane back with a sweeping kick, breathing a little harder than normal. Akane was just about winded, but she had a smile on her face that even Ukyou couldn't ignore. She broke out into her own smile, and pressed her own attack.  
A combination later, Ukyou's "empty spatula-hand" technique proved effective, at least against the other girl, and she called the match off with a pulled strike to Akane's throat. Akane stepped back, and bowed cheerfully, eager to dispense with formality and discuss training.  
Ukyou was the first to speak.   
"Akane, what's got you trying so hard?"  
"I'm really excited. Back home, I never get a chance to train- Ranma won't really spar with me, so all I end up doing is breaking bricks. But here, I'm going to get to really take my martial arts to another level, so that when I go back to Japan, I won't just be a whole bunch of baggage."  
"Akane, you're not..."  
"Oh yes I am! I can't beat anyone I know!" Akane said, raising her voice. Dropping back to the more cheerful tone, she continued. "But not after this trip. I'm going to train harder than I've ever trained before, and when I go back, no one will be able to call me weak again!" Akane finished with a gasp.  
"And you want my help?" Ukyou said.  
"I'll take any help I can get. Ranma's not any help at all, so I would really appreciate it if you would, Ukyou."  
  
Ukyou dropped her head, hiding her face behind her bangs. She began to chuckle, then threw her head back laughing.  
"What?" Akane said, face incredulous.  
"You want to beat Shampoo?" Ukyou said.  
"Well... yeah, I do, I guess. Not for that Jerk, but because she makes me so mad!" Akane said, punctuating her sentence by shaking a raised, clenched fist.  
"Well, in that case, I'm just your girl. Looks like we have something else in common other than Ranma, eh, Akane?" Ukyou said.  
"Huh?" Akane said intelligently.  
Ukyou's brain went into overdrive, all thoughts of scheming gone. If Akane wanted to train, Ukyou'd be more than happy to have a partner, especially one as available (living at the same place) and enthusiastic as Akane. She'd train hard enough to beat Shampoo, and if Akane got there too, that would be another defeat for the Amazon that Ukyou'd had a little part in.   
"Come on, Akane. We've got some work to do. The thing is, Shampoo moves..." Ukyou began.  
  
  
Ryoga ducked under the swinging kick, knocking out the older teacher's supporting leg with a kick to the back of his knee. He dropped suddenly, rolling sideways out of the way of the axe kick that the younger teacher sent his way, and while rolling, extended his arms in such a way that he sprung neatly to his feet.  
"You're pretty good, son."  
Ryoga sneered. "Thanks, dad."  
"But you've still got a lot to learn. You can sit down, Chun." Said the older martial artist, motioning towards the younger.  
"What, you think after that you've still got something to teach me?" Ryoga asked.  
"Absolutely." Began the teacher, stepping into his assault.  
Ryoga met the teacher's assault with raised arms, expecting to block a serious impact. But when the teacher's arms connected, he barely felt their touch. He peered curiously at the sensei over their crossed arms.  
The sensei returned a blank stare.  
Ryoga growled, then tried to push a punch through the crossing guard of his opponent. The teacher rewarded him by rolling sideways, lashing out sideways with a flat hand to Ryoga's throat, and with a kick to Ryoga's back and then hind leg.  
  
Ryoga grunted at the sacrifice, but pulled his arm in from the man's side, expecting to lock him in a grapple and use his superior strength to bring the man down.   
The teacher surprised Ryoga by launching his free arm behind Ryoga's head. With a series of slapping blows that hurt his dignity more than anything, Ryoga's head came down until the old man sprung up and jumped off of it, avoiding the slow movements of the older man's arms.  
  
"Come back here and fight!" Ryoga growled. That had been far too reminiscent of Ranma.  
"Nope. I'm done for now." The old man said, smiling while rubbing his knuckles.  
Ryoga fumed for a few more moments, the sat down facing the two teachers. The other students in the class figured it was safe, and joined him up front.  
"Fine. I see you've got something to teach me." Ryoga said angrily.  
"I'm glad you're seeing it our way. What with telegraphing as bad as you have, it would take a miracle for you to defeat that heinous, honorless martial artist who holds hostage your one true love in addition to three other innocent girls." The old man said. "You're very brave and courageous to have tried so hard with so little."  
"Shut up." Ryoga said.  
"I believe you have what it takes to advance very quickly. However, I feel much more than any training in techniques or forms, we need to change your attitude towards  
fighting. For you, fighting is all about anger, and that robs you of many of a martial artists's best tools. Subtlety is lost on you- every blow is a culmination of all that Ryoga Hibiki has to offer. The typical weakness that this approach gives, that of becoming tired too quickly, is obviously not a shortcoming of yours- however, it makes you easier to avoid, bait, and predict, while cutting off avenues of attack that might prove more fruitful."  
Ryoga looked on- it was painful, but even he could see that it was very much true.  
"You simply don't see the writing on the wall- you won't give up one on objective even when it becomes painfully obvious you can't achieve it, at least in this respect."  
  
"Are you saying I should give up on trying to defeat Ranma?" Ryoga asked angrily.  
  
"No, no, not at all. I'm saying you should stop trying to beat him with the same old tricks  
over and over again."  
  
"I'm not the one who uses dirty tricks." Ryoga muttered half to himself.  
  
"That's not what I meant. Here, I'll show you what I mean."  
  
The old man motioned for Ryoga to stand up as he did himself.  
  
"I want you to attack me with everything you've got."  
  
Ryoga looked at the old man. "You don't want that."  
  
"All right, maybe I don't. Slow it down just a touch, but don't hold back other than that."  
  
Ryoga shrugged. "Ready?" he asked. Shaking his head at the nod, Ryoga slowly walked up to the older man, and slapped out at his head.  
The old man stood there until Ryoga pulled the blow right before his face.  
"I said don't hold back." The oldr man said.  
"All right." Ryoga slapped out again.  
The old man ducked under it.  
Ryoga responded with a knee- the man blocked it with a pirouette with a raised knee, striking out at the end with a high roundhouse to Ryoga's head.  
Ryoga ignored the blow and struck for the older man's midsection- but the old man rolled around the fist and up the side of Ryoga's arm on the outside, striking him in the back of the head with an elbow.  
  
Ryoga reached behind his back with his far hand, and grabbed a hold of the old man's gi, and roughly jerked him around to his front, where he lashed out with his right hand to make a chokehold- but the old man dropped his knees, falling to where Ryoga's arm caught him- then stomach pumped Ryoga with both feet.  
Ryoga jerked backwards and let go of the gi.  
"All right, Old man, what's your deal."  
"It's traditional Hwarang Do to respond to a linear attack with a circular one and vice versa. However, what I was getting at was adaptability. I responded to each of your attacks with a counterattack that related to your attack. You don't respond to your opponents in any way- you attack in the same way, regardless of position."  
Ryoga shrugged, but the wheels started chugging.  
  
Ryoga walked the pathway towards the Yoshikawa home long after school got out. He'd been trying to get someone to lead him somewhere, but he hadn't been able to.  
But of course he now had a very, very brilliant idea.  
Oh Akane... If you only knew how I feel... I, Ryoga Hibiki, will defeat Ranma Saotome and return your honor. And on that day, I will be able to tell you how I feel. Oh Akane, will you help me defeat Ranma? he thought, clutching the scroll to his chest.  
hey... Where am I? Ryoga thought suddenly. His heart went into a panic. Oh no! I'll never be able to find my way back! I won't see Akane-San for a year or more, and by then who know what the fiend Ranma will have done! Curse my wretched sense of direction!  
Ryoga began to look around frantically, identifying landmarks.  
Tree. Check. Shrubs. Check. Two men hustling along with a big metal head. A pair of elementary schoolers playing football in someone's yard. Two teenagers smooching on the rim of a water fountain. Check. Wait, the people will all be gone by then! Ryoga thought as he wandered over towards the fountain. Maybe someone there can help me find my way... he said as he was suddenly blinded by a camera flash.  
"Ow." He said, as he heard rustling and quick footsteps behind him.  
"It figures they'd run away." Came a familiar voice.  
"There's two kinds- the confronting and the running. Both are equally easy to deal with."  
"Whatever. I'm never going to do it."  
Ryoga was still blind.  
"Hey, don't you know him?"  
"Oh yeah. That's one of those guys after my sister."  
Ryoga blushed furiously. "Tendo Nabiki? Is that you?"  
"Mmm-hm. And what are YOU doing here, Ryoga-kun?"  
"I'm... ah... You see..."  
"You're lost." Then, in a fainter voice, almost as if to someone else "he has the world's worst sense of direction. He gets lost going to the bathroom."  
"Oh, I see." Ryoga couldn't place the voice.  
"What'd you flash me with, anyways? I've never been this blinded by a camera flash before." Ryoga said.  
"It's my special embarrassment flash. It's one hundred times as bright as normal. The shutter just opens later in the flash, so it takes a normal picture. It's to make the maximum possible scene, and sometimes, to blind people like you."  
"So you can skedaddle?" went the second voice.  
"Well, I prefer to think of it as allowing them to calm down."  
"Whatever."  
"Oh, by the way................. this is my friend, Rei. Rei, Ryoga, Ryoga, Rei."  
"Pleased to meet you." began Ryoga.  
"A pleasure." said Rei.   
A hand grabbed Ryoga's. "Well, I'll lead you back now." Rei said.  
"Okay. See you later, Rei." Nabiki said.  
Ryoga felt himself led back mostly over what he would guess was land he'd already covered. Of course, in these moments of intellectualism Ranma would snort Ryoga allowed himself the luxury of distrusting his sense of direction.  
"So, Ryoga-Kun, you do much adventuring?" Rei asked.  
"Well, that depends on whether or not you count getting lost." Ryoga said, rubbing the back of his head nervously.  
"No, but if you do something cool while you're lost, that sure counts."  
"I got possessed by a cat ghost once." Ryoga said sheepishly. Normally, he didn't like revealing that sort of weakness, but he was STILL blind from Nabiki's flash.  
"Yeah? Did anything interesting happen?" Rei's voice continued.  
"Well, I proposed to Nabiki's sister Akane. But it wasn't me."  
"I bet that had some aftermath."  
"Not really. I just got lost again." Ryoga said sheepishly.  
"huh. Some adventurer you are." Rei's voice said disapprovingly.  
"I'm a martial artist, not an adventurer!"   
"Same thing."  
Ryoga's foot bumped into steps.  
"We're here."   
"Oh. Well, thank you." Ryoga said, dumbly stepping up towards the door, finally finding it and barely avoiding the plate glass window. His vision began to return just then, and he turned around to thank Rei again, but she wasn't there.  
Ranma sat on the bed, juggling a bunch of stupid toys. The guy whose room it was had a pretty neat collection, but some of it, in Ranma's mind, was highly suspect. For example, most of it was from shows that hadn't been on the air since Ranma was just a baby. Of course, Ranma hadn't watched TV when he was a baby, or even a small child for that matter, so it was all new to him, but that was beside the point. Ranma'd never thought Astroboy was cool, or Gigantor or Giant Robo. These things were contemptuous, and it was these toys that Ranma juggled right then.  
Truth was, he was bored. And he didn't know why.  
The door opened, and Ryoga stumbled in, carrying his trademark backpack, umbrella, and clutching a scroll.  
"Yo, man, what's going on?" Ranma asked.  
"Where's Gosunkugi?" Ryoga asked.  
"Why the heck would you be looking for Gosunkugi?" Ranma said, standing up without disturbing the juggle.  
"None of your business, Ranma."  
"Oh, I bet you wanted him to lead you somewhere instead of me. I get it." Ranma said. Ranma couldn't believe just how smart he was. How did it escape other people?  
"No..." Ryoga stammered.  
"Fine, fine. I'll take you there myself." Ranma said. "Where are we going?"  
"We're not going anywhere!" Ryoga yelled, throwing a punch at the center of the blurry Ranma. Not surprisingly, there was no connection.  
Ranma stood still as the punch came short about 5 inches without even moving a muscle of his own.  
"You okay there?"  
"Fine, Ranma. Just Fine."  
"Look, just tell me where you want to go, and I'll help you out, okay?" Ranma supplied helpfully.  
Ryoga held out a scrap of paper from the hand not holding the scroll.  
"Okay, man, you got it."  
Ranma led Ryoga down the street.   
"419, 417, 415, 411, 407. Here we are." Ranma said, looking up at the sign.  
"Ace Hardware" the sign proclaimed loudly for all to see.  
"hey Ryoga, what's a hardware?" Ranma asked.  
Ryoga grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him inside.  
Ranma followed Ryoga through the aisles, kind of enjoying watching him go in circles of the same four aisles over and over again. "So, Hardware is like tools and stuff, I take it?"  
Ryoga just grunted, and Ranma had to step up to catch him as he rounded another corner.  
"Jeez, man, what's got you so mad?" Ranma asked.  
"FINALLY!" Ryoga bellowed as he caught sight of what he wanted. With a beeline down the Aisle, Ryoga finally laid hands upon...  
"A shovel? What did you want a shovel for?" Ranma asked.  
"None of your business, Ranma." The lost boy replied.  
Ranma led the lost boy over to the cashier, who charged Ryoga in numbers he understood. Ryoga pulled some money out of his pocket, and the cashier handed back the shovel, along with a receipt.  
"Okay, P-Chan. Where now?"  
Ryoga began to stammer quietly.  
"Come on, Ryoga, where now? Are we going home or what?" Ranma asked.  
"Can you take me to Akane?" Ryoga asked.  
Ranma paused. Why did he want to go see Akane? Oh wait, that's obvious. But what the hell did he want a shovel for? He wasn't going to...  
"No way, Ryoga." Ranma said angrily.  
"Ranma...." Ryoga growled threateningly.  
"You just buy a shovel and you want me to lead you there? You could hurt someone with that thing!"  
Ryoga turned towards the talking Ranma with the shovel on his back.  
Clang  
"Ow. That's my point exactly" Ranma said, rubbing his head.  
"It's not for her. I... "  
Ranma paused again. He did enjoy teasing Akane, and he hadn't seen her in a little while. It couldn't hurt him any more than a mallet or two and maybe a Spatula. If he played things right, Ryoga'd be the one who got the spatula...  
  
Ranma tugged on Ryoga's bandanna as they reached Akane and Ukyou's host home.  
It was a nice two story, white siding with a sloped brown roof and a small front porch.  
It was kind of narrow for an American house, but it sure beat most Japanese houses.  
Ryoga stumbled back into the proper direction as Ranma knocked on the door.  
Ranma recognized Jackie, Akane's host mother, from the airport.  
"Hello, boys. Come on in, the girls are out back practicing."  
  
Ranma and Ryoga stepped out the back sliding glass window into the backyard, where Akane and Ukyou were trading blows to each other's open palms, apparently practicing strikes as they stepped lightly around the yard.  
Ukyou was the first to notice them.  
"Ranchan!"  
Or, notice someone, at least.  
Ukyou bounded across the yard to Ranma, throwing her arm around his shoulder.  
"You've come to see me?" She said.  
"uh... well... " Ranma began.  
"He came to bring me over." Ryoga began as Akane walked up and greeted the lost boy warmly.  
"Whatever, Hibiki. So, Ranma, Whatcha up to?" Ukyou continued.  
"I thought I'd help him out.P-Chan's so helpless, it's dishonorable not to."  
Crack  
Ranma looked up at Ryoga from his new digs down on the ground, courtesy Tendo Akane.  
"Ranma, soon you won't be able to laugh so easily." Ryoga said menacingly.  
Ranma shrugged. Ryoga was always saying stuff like that.  
Ukyou reached down and helped the pigtailed martial artist to his feet.  
"Why is that, Hibiki? You going to get lost for good this time?" Ukyou said, facing him.  
Ryoga shot her a glare. "No, I'm going to defeat him once and for all."  
Ukyou tightened her grip on Ranma. "Not My Ranchan, you're not. You don't stand a chance." She said, gripping him tighter still.  
"Yeah, P-Chan. What makes you think you can beat me now?" Ranma quipped.  
"Rrrrrraaaaaanmmmaa!" Akane said, launching him skyward with her traditional uppercut. Ukyou stepped neatly out of the way. "How dare you pick on Ryoga like that!"  
Ryoga laughed at the speeding upward Saotome.  
Clang  
"Don't you laugh at Ranma!" Ukyo said, storming inside in a swirl of long brown hair.  
Akane helped the swirly eyed Ryoga out of the little crater Ukyou'd made.  
"So, how are you, Ryoga?"  
Ryoga's face took on a determined look. He swallowed loudly.  
"I need your help, Akane-san."  
Ranma landed only a few feet away from the Yoshikawa home. Quite used to this, no matter how far from home he was, he picked himself up, dusted himself off, and began his march inside.  
  
Akane led Ryoga onwards to the sloping hill. The brown grass waved in the light breeze- no one had cut it, so it was more than waist high to Akane as she waded to the foot of the hill.  
"Will this do, Ryoga?" Akane asked.  
"I need to go over there, where it's a little steeper" he replied, looking at a peculiar piece of parchment he'd unrolled.  
"What exactly are you doing, anyways?" Akane asked.  
Ryoga wordlessly dropped his backpack and withdrew the shovel he'd been carrying when he and Ranma had arrived at the Morris home.  
"Akane, I'm training myself. I want to defeat Ranma. And when I do, I'll have something to tell you." He said, face stoic.  
"Ryoga?" Akane asked questioningly.  
Ryoga stuck the long handled shovel into the ground, and with minimal effort, pulled a clump of dirt and grass free from the earth, and tossed it aside.  
"Is there any way I can help, Ryoga?" Akane said.  
"I wouldn't want you to do this, Akane." Ryoga replied. Turning to his backpack, he set down the shovel, and pulled out a few books, a bag of snacks, and a little stove. Setting it up, he set out some tea bags.  
"Akane, if you could just stay here until I finish so I don't..." Ryoga began.  
Akane watched his face grimace as his voice trailed off.  
"Sure, Ryoga. I want to see what you're up to." And maybe get some ideas for my own training... Akane thought.  
Ryoga gently passed her the scroll, then picked up the shovel and began to dig.  
In an hour or so, Ryoga had built a very strange contraption on the sloping hill, with logs   
Swinging from ropes, and timbers making a frame. It looked like a cross between a jungle gym, a set of punching bags and a torture implement.  
"Ryoga, I don't understand what this training is all about." Akane asked.  
Ryoga looked at her tenderly. "You'll understand soon enough, Akane-san. Please be patient."  
Akane walked home in silence. She wasn't sure if she'd done the right thing or not. Of course, this time it wasn't like when she had thought that Ryoga was going to explode Ranma with a single touch. But still, Ryoga had a tendency to get carried away, especially when it came to Ranma. She hoped that Ranma would be all right.  
She walked up to the porch, and with a little rap, opened the door. Rose waved from the couch as Akane smiled and walked upstairs. She found Ukyou waiting in their room, playing a game of solitaire.  
"I thought you'd have had enough of cards for a lifetime." Akane said with a smile.  
"I like it. It's relaxing" Ukyou said. "How was your date?"  
Akane shrugged. "It wasn't a date. He just wanted me to help him find a place so he could start this new training method of his."  
"Suuuuure." Ukyou said without looking up from her cards.  
"What? That's all it was, just like I said!" Akane replied.  
Ukyou let the subject drop.  
Akane leaned back on her bed and considered the day so far. She'd had an easy time in the placement trials, and when the instructor had passed her a slip with Hwarang Do on it, she'd smiled. She didn't know much about it, except that it was a hard style and that it encompassed weapons fairly effectively. When she'd found out that it meant "The path to the Korean flower of Manhood" she'd been less than ideally happy, but she thought she was going to like the class. She was glad she wasn't like some of the other students she'd talked to, who'd all been forced to learn styles that were radically different from their own. Then she'd decided to take this opportunity. Back in Nerima, she couldn't even put on her Gi without being mocked for her level of skill. But not here- she'd be in just the same position as everyone else, only she'd be trying so much harder. And when they got back, they'd know better than to make fun of Tendo Akane.  
She snuggled into her pillow, imagining moments of her great martial skill...  
  
Akane ducked under the giant spatula, and with an upward elbow, spun the metal object to block Shampoo's kick. She kicked Shampoo's extended leg at the back of the knee, sending the older amazon onto her back with a squeak. Moving inwards towards Ukyou, she escaped the wrath of the ribbon which snapped and writhed on the ground behind her. Ukyou raised her spatula above her head, removing Akane's cover and preparing to strike, But Akane just spun around her, reaching up and pulling the spatula backwards until Akane kneed Ukyou in the back. Letting Ukyou down gently, Akane deflected the ribbon's second assault with the Spatula, that wrapped around the handle.  
Quickly spinning the spatula with the wrap, Akane attached the ribbon firmly to Ukyou's family heirloom, and pulled hard. Kodachi came screeching in from her preferred distance, stumbling past Akane, who silenced Kodachi with an elbow to the upper back as the gymnast wobbled by.  
With that, Akane pulled free one of Ukyou's throwing spatulas from a nearby stone, and cut free Ranma.  
"Gee thanks, Akane" he'd begin, but Akane would just shrug it off.  
"It's pride thing. Don't think I do it because I like you." Dream Akane said.  
"But Akane, I love you!" Dream Ranma said.  
"I Know. Everyone does." Dream Akane said.  
  
Ukyou watched as Akane smiled and snuggled even tighter into her pillow.  
What's got her so happy? Is it Ryoga? Ukyou wondered.  
  
Ukyou, for her part, was laying in bed contemplating her dilemma- that of her embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Amazon, and of how to claim her beloved Ranma for herself.  
Her earlier conclusions, that she had to train herself in all aspects of desirability to Ranma, still seemed valid. But now there was the questions of how to train herself.  
Ukyou divided the areas she felt needed work up in her mind like the ingredients of an okonomiyaki.   
Okay...  
The eggs, water and flour of the batter represent my cooking ability, , my martial skill,   
And my personality, the flour which binds it all together. The shredded cabbage represents  
My brains and conversational ability, to keep my beloved mentally stimulated, whilst  
The shrimp and other toppings represent the accomplishments I need to make my husband proud of me. The Sauce represents femininity, the coating I need to put over everything  
Else to make it look and taste great. Finally, the cooking process represents my appearance..  
She frowned, than continued.  
However, I'm just learning to cook over again... I can't have any distractions.  
She remembered when she'd gone off into training to defeat stupid ol' crepe Joe, and  
as such, she decided what she'd have to do.  
"I must cast aside my worldly passions... and dedicate myself to the task at hand...  
And with that thought, Ukyou decided to avoid Ranma for the duration of her training.  
"Oh, Ranchan, I do it all for you...please don't be sad while you wait for me!"  
  
  
  
  
Thanks to the unnamed soul who not only wrote the Kuno section that I paraphrased from memory, but gave me the ideas for a lot more Kuno in the future. If my old Hd hadn't died, I'd have given him credit by name- write in and let me give you props.  
Also Thanking Exarkun, Nuki_mouse, Orlean, Ginrai, Halo2298@prodigy.net, Lord Jahaj, and everyone else who wrote in with Support, along with Grayson Towler, and RPM, who inspired me to write.  
Speed@olypen.com  



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